Why is it so many apps on phones include sharing features? They frequently pester you to connect your Facebook, Twitter and other social networking accounts. Is this a good idea though?

You can end up sharing too much with people you don’t know and this can be dangerous in ways you never realised. If you are ever asked to share any information in a phone app, even if at first sight is appears to be harmless, think twice about it. Think how it could be used or used against you.

Some sharing features in apps are just plain silly and in the past there have been apps that measure your heart rate when you place your finger over the camera lens on the back of the phone. You can then share it with other people, but why on earth would you want to share your heart rate on Facebook, Twitter or some other social network? Who would be interested? Not even your doctor, after all, it is hardly an accurate way of determining the health of your heart.

That sort of sharing isn’t really dangerous and it is just pointless. Many apps have pointless sharing facilities that share stuff not even your closest friends would be interested in.

Don't share your location

A more serious sharing problem is with health and fitness apps that track your activities. There are running, cycling, walking and other apps such as Strava, Runtastic, Runkeeper, Endomondo and others that have privacy issues that you need to be aware of.

People typically step outside their home and start the app as they set off for a run or cycle ride. The GPS in the phone is used to track your route, the distance covered, time taken, average pace and so on. When you return home you press the stop button and your activity is recorded. There is even a nice map showing the route you took.

You will be encouraged to share this activity with other people that use the app or with popular social networks you use. Many apps have a community, an online community where you can see other friends and people’s activities, follow people, have people follow you and so on. They literally could be following you, right to your home!

That lovely running/walking/cycling map showing your route pinpoints your home. When you share it, you are telling the whole world where you live. Do you really want people to know your exact address?

This is a particular problem for cyclists, especially cycling enthusiasts that spend thousands on the latest and greatest top-of-the-range bikes. There have been news reports that thieves have used these activity tracking apps in order to target people with expensive bikes.

Cycling enthusiasts are proud of their expensive high performance carbon fibre road bikes and they post photos of them in their profile or along with their activity. This means that a thief can see that you have an expensive bike and from your route maps they can see where you live. All they need to do is to wait until you go to work and then break in and take your bike. Security is often poor and bikes are kept in garages or sheds, which makes the task easy for the thief.

What can you do?

It depends on whether you want to continue sharing your activities or not. You could turn off all the sharing features in the app and ignore any prompts to share an activity when you have completed it.

Sharing features are not just in apps themselves and if the activity tracking app includes an online community you should log in to the website using a web browser and check the privacy settings on your account.

Some people do like to share their activities and for those, the solution is to start and finish recording some distance from your home. The further away the better, but it does not have to be too far away and if there are a lot of houses around you, then simply walking for a couple of minutes minute in any direction is far enough so that no one can tell which house from the dozens around you that you live in.

You just have to judge for yourself how far to go and how much you want to obscure your location. Just make sure you don’t start recording an activity right outside your door.

Easy sign-ins share too much

Many apps want you to create an account and many provide easy ways to do that, such as with a Facebook or Google account. This is much quicker and easier than creating an account with a username and password, then waiting for an email to verify it. A couple of clicks and your account is set up.

Signing in using Facebook or Google may be easy, but it provides the developer with a lot of information about you. Do you really want to share it with them. The screenshot above shows the Google sign-in and Runtastic gets your email address, date of birth, personal information, and so on. Can you even remember what personal information you have stored in your Google account.

Signing in with Facebook can also provide the app developer with information about you, and possibly all your friends too.

What can you do? Create an account with a separate email address and password and avoid these quick sign-ins. You could be sharing too much.