Proton found trackers inside most VPN apps downloaded in the US
A study by Proton VPN found that 85% of mobile VPN apps in the US contain trackers for advertising or profiling, with many capable of accessing sensitive user data like GPS location. The report also highlighted concerns regarding the ownership of these apps, noting that several are linked to companies in China.
Why it matters
This exposes a major privacy paradox where tools marketed for security are actively harvesting user data, raising significant cybersecurity and privacy concerns.
When you install a VPN , you're trusting another company with a large part of your internet traffic. Most people do this because they want more privacy, which makes Proton VPN's latest findings pretty damning.
After examining more than 7,000 mobile VPN apps around the world, Proton says 85% of the VPNs in its US analysis contain trackers used for analytics, advertising, or profiling. Some of these apps can also access information such as your device ID, phone model, network type, mobile carrier, and even your physical location.
For the analysis, Proton used Exodus Privacy, an open-source platform that searches Android apps for known tracker code. Finding one of these trackers does not necessarily tell us exactly what information a particular VPN is collecting or what it eventually does with that data.
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