Privacy Breakdown of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones were not designed for privacy and security by default. Not only do they do a poor job of protecting your communications, they also expose you to new kinds of surveillance risks—especially location tracking. 

Most mobile phones give the user much less control than a personal desktop or laptop computer would. For example, it's harder to replace the operating system , harder to investigate malware attacks, harder to remove or replace undesirable bundled software, and harder to prevent parties like the cellular provider from monitoring how you use the device. Additionally, the device maker may declare your device obsolete and stop providing you with software updates, including security fixes. When this happens, you may not have anywhere else to turn for these fixes.

Some of these problems can be addressed by using third-party privacy software or by changing some of the default settings on your phone—but some of them can't. Here, we'll describe some ways that phones can aid surveillance and undermine your privacy.