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Workplace applications, including productivity and messaging apps, gather an average of 19 data points per user for third-party sale, according to areportbyIncogni, a data privacy company that offers personal data removal services. While this is lower than many consumer-facing apps, the critical difference is that users are often required to use specific apps for work and cannot opt out of the app and its personal data collection.
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Communication applications and platforms – such as email and messaging platforms – collect the most information, but productivity apps are more likely to share personal data they collect with third parties.
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Among the types of data these apps are collecting: contact and financial information, user location and which other apps the user interacts with.
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“People tend to think of workplace apps as safe tools, but they don’t exist in isolation,” said Darius Belejevas, head of Incogni. “A lot of them are part of much larger data ecosystems. Once information is collected, especially if it’s shared with third parties, it can travel much further than users expect.”
No Jitter Insight:
Zoom, Gmail, Slack and Microsoft Teams are the collaborative fabric throughout enterprises for messaging and collaboration with coworkers across the globe. The services provided by these applications are essential in the modern workplace, and they are often mandatory. Employees also use them on personal devices because of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. However, like all applications, these tools collect and share personal data, such as locations, email addresses, names and app interactions.
Gmail was reported to collect 26 distinct data types, which is seven more than the average app. Among these data types were location, app interactions and user IDs.
Zoom and Microsoft Teams were the only apps analyzed in the report that collected precise location data, which can lead to operational security problems in the workplace, especially since location data is considered highly sensitive.
Notion, a productivity application that can be used to share documents and manage projects, was found to share the most personal information with third parties, including names and email addresses. Researchers also found that Workday – which focuses on HR, finance and IT – was the only app that doesn’t allow users to request their data be deleted.
Sarah McBride, Principal Analyst, Omdia, said, “Workplace applications that access and share employee information can pose significant security and privacy risks for organizations. These risks arise from the sensitive nature of the data involved, the potential for misuse, and vulnerabilities in the applications themselves. Workplace applications often collect sensitive information such as personal identification details and financial data, and if these applications are not properly secured, unauthorized individuals could gain access to this data, leading to identity theft, fraud, or other malicious activities.
Disclosure: Informa TechTarget, the publisher behind No Jitter, also owns Omdia. Informa TechTarget has no influence over No Jitter’s coverage.
