Apps can pose a big security and privacy risk depending on where you download them from.

Google and Apple have removed hundreds of apps from their app stores at the request of governments around the world, creating regional disparities in access to mobile apps at a time when many countries are becoming more dependent on them.

The mobile phone giants have removed more than 200 Chinese apps, including widely downloaded apps like TikTok, at the request of the Indian government in recent years. Similarly, companies have removed LinkedIn, an important professional communication app, from Russian app stores at the request of the Russian government.

However, access to applications is only one problem. Developers also localize applications, that is, they release different versions for different countries. This raises the question of whether these apps vary in their security and privacy capabilities by region.

In an ideal world, access to apps and app security and privacy would be the same everywhere. Popular mobile apps need to be accessible without increasing the risk of users being spied on or tracked depending on the country they are in, especially given that not all countries have strict data protection regulations.

Recently, my colleagues and I reviewed the availability and privacy policies of thousands of globally popular apps on Google Play, the app store for Android devices, in 26 countries. We found differences in app availability, security, and privacy.

While our research confirms reports of government-requested content being taken down, we also found many differences made by app developers. We have found instances of apps with settings and disclosures that expose users to higher or lower security and privacy risks depending on the country in which they were downloaded.

Applications with geo-blocking

The countries and one special administrative region in our study are diverse in location, population, and gross domestic product. Among them are the USA, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, Hong Kong and India. We also included countries such as Iran, Zimbabwe and Tunisia where data was difficult to collect. We studied 5,684 worldwide popular apps, each with over 1 million installs, across 22 major app categories, including Books & Reference, Education, Medical, and News & Magazines.

Our research showed a high number of geo-blocks: 3,672 of 5,684 popular apps worldwide were blocked in at least one of our 26 countries. The number of bans by developers was significantly higher than the number of removals requested by governments in all of our countries and app categories. We found that Iran and Tunisia have the highest blocking rates, and applications such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, Flipboard, and Google Books are not available for download.