An investigation by Cybernews revealed potential sensitive data access by 14 popular airline apps. American Airlines and United Airlines collected the most data, while Philippine Airlines collected the least.
The tested apps had access to user location, camera, storage, phone state, microphone, contacts, accounts, messages, and calls
Several apps including Ryanair did not disclose they collected certain types of data, such as location, camera, microphone, and SMS/call access
Ryanair’s app collects camera-related data, phone state data on fraud prevention, security and compliance, access to microphone, and seeks access to the passengers’ storage on App Functionality, according to information on the Google Play Store.
Accoding to Cybernews , the permission to get accounts grants an app access to the user’s accounts associated with the device. This would mean that the app can retrieve a list of accounts, including email addresses, that are registered on the device, e.g., Google, Meta, Samsung, and other accounts. This type of permission for an airline app is not needed for its functionality but could potentially have privacy and security risks.
