Apps, AI, and data privacy in 2025: Who’s collecting most of your data?

6 min read

From AI assistants that remember your preferences and offer smarter suggestions, to apps utilising data to create personalised experiences - technology is more intelligent than ever before. 

With over 8.9 million mobile apps available worldwide, almost every single one of them collects some form of data, whether it's information necessary for the app’s functionality or for personalised advertising, but which ones are the most invasive? 

According to Apple, there are three ways in which data is collected:

• It may be used to track you
• It may be linked to you
• It may not be linked to you

To discover more about the data each app collects, we looked at over 90 popular apps on Apple’s App Store. For the purpose of this study, we chose to focus specifically on “Data linked to you” as this is the type of data that ties directly back to your identity - and whilst some of this data collection will be necessary for functionality, it may also be unclear why certain data is collected and whether it really aligns with what the app actually does. After all, whilst most of us are aware that apps collect some form of data, what is not always obvious is just how many different types of data are being collected - and how that information is tied to our identity. A more detailed breakdown of the types of data collected can be found on Apple’s App Store Privacy Details page. 

Key takeaways from our findings:

• Social media apps are the most data hungry when it comes to data collected that is linked to the user, with Facebook and Instagram topping the list, each collecting 156 data points
• This is followed closely by Threads, which collects 154 data points linked to the user
• All three of the most data hungry apps are owned by Meta highlighting a strong desire for them to obtain data for more detailed social profiles
• Contact information (such as your name, phone number and home address) is the most collected type of data linked to the user

The top 10 most data hungry apps 

Most data hungry apps are dominated by social media platforms. Facebook and Instagram top the list in joint first place, each with 156 data points linked to users. This is followed closely by Threads, with 154 (with all three being owned by Meta). Other social media apps like YouTube and X also rank in the top 10, highlighting how important data collection is to these types of platforms in order to customise content to show things such as posts and friend suggestions that are most relevant to the user and which build detailed social profiles. 

Surprisingly, Amazon Alexa is the only AI assistant that features in the top 10. Although it makes sense that Alexa ranks highly due to its integration in users’ homes and routines, it could be that other AI assistants such as Google Assistant, Siri and Microsoft’s Copilot have different privacy policies when it comes to data collection.

For example, it may be that these apps collect data used to track you, while deliberately avoiding any data linked to you. This could be for several reasons such as prioritising privacy or avoiding potential misuse of user information. Instead they may use device IDs to track user behaviour across apps for reasons such as targeted advertising or to gain a better understanding of the overall user journey. 

Amazon (83), PayPal (72), and Uber (71) represent the shopping, finance, and travel sectors, showing that even everyday utility apps are heavily invested in data collection too.
 

The top 10 least data hungry apps

While most apps collect some form of data linked to the user, a small group of apps don’t. This includes Booking.com, AI Chatbot, NHS Couch to 5 K, Aldi and Reddit. 

Take AI Chatbot for example - this app doesn’t require users to create an account or provide any personal information, so it doesn’t collect any data linked to users. However, according to Apple, it does still collect ‘identifiers’, which means they can track your activity across different apps and websites using things like your IP address. 

Another good example is Booking.com, which allows users to browse the app without logging in or sharing personal information, which means it doesn’t collect any data linked to their identity. That said, once a user logs in or makes a booking, the data collected may then be associated with their identity for various purposes, including processing payments, managing transactions and delivering personalised marketing. This may include tailored recommendations based on a user's location that they believe will be relevant and which they can book directly through their platform. 

Apps that collect a small number of data points include ReelShort (3) and DramaBox (3), Sainsbury’s (5), TUI (5) and the NHS App (6) suggesting that some data is collected likely for account functionality and personalisation but is still kept relatively limited. 

Most data hungry apps per category

Next in our research, we aimed to identify the most data-hungry apps by category to better understand preferences around data sharing.

When it comes to comparing AI assistants, Amazon Alexa (115) stands out with more than double the data collection of Google Assistant (56). This is likely a result of Alexa’s broad functionality as not only a central smart home controller, but also a shopping assistant that collects voice recordings, location, contacts and more. 

Amazon Prime Video (64) collects the most data in the entertainment and streaming category. This includes identifiers, payment data, and personal details. This is likely to help drive highly personalised recommendations and ads when it comes to films and TV shows. 

LinkedIn is the most data hungry (124) among the business and workplace apps, likely relying on data to provide detailed user profiles for things such as networking, job targeting and B2B marketing. In the finance and business world, apps PayPal (72) and Klarna (69) collect the most data, respectively. These types of apps often need more sensitive and verifiable data than others. 

Apps like Strava (60) and Flo (40) collect the most data when it comes to health and fitness. Strava collects detailed location, health metrics, and movement patterns that are linked to the user. 

Food delivery apps Deliveroo (54) and Just Eat (49) collect more data than traditional grocery apps like Morrisons (23). This could be due to coordinating between customers, restaurants, and delivery drivers, and therefore requiring more detailed data.

In the shopping category, Amazon collects the most data (83), relying heavily on user profiling, whereas travel apps like Uber (71) and Airbnb (64) come out on top as the most data hungry in the travel sector.

Meta’s apps, Facebook (156), Instagram (16) and Threads (154), not only collect the most data in the social media category, but they also collect the most data overall. This includes demographics, behaviours, interactions, contacts, browsing history, device use, and more.

Most collected data linked to the user

The most frequently collected data linked to users spans a wide range of categories, highlighting how apps gather detailed information to personalise experiences and optimise functionality. 

Contact information including names, phone numbers, and home addresses is the most collected data linked to the user - collected 667 times across apps. 

Close behind are identifiers like screen names, account IDs, and customer numbers, collected 546 times, and usage data such as taps, clicks, and scrolling behaviour, recorded 469 times. 

Protecting your privacy 

The study highlights how extensive data collection has become across a huge variety of apps and also provides insight into how user profiles are built from multiple data variables in order to enable things such as personalisation and targeted advertising. 

However, the sheer scale of data collected highlights why understanding and managing app permissions and data policies is increasingly important for users. 

With hundreds of different types of personal information collected on a daily basis, ranging from basic contact details to extremely sensitive health data, users need to be aware of how to actively manage app permissions and data policies.

Methodology 

We analysed over 90 popular apps from the App store across a range of categories and collected each of the apps' privacy data on the ‘data linked to you’ (data that is collected and linked to your identity) to get a better understanding on what data is collected from an app and how it is used. We were then able to rank each app to determine which are the most data hungry and which are the least intrusive. All data collected in May 2025.