Over 90 percent of mobile apps gained permissions to access users’ private information in the first half of 2018, according to a report recently released by the Tencent Research Institute and the Data Center of China Internet (DCCI), Xinhuanet.com reported.

Statistics indicate that about 99.9 percent of Android apps obtained private information from their users in the first six months of this year. The figure for iOS apps also rose dramatically from 69.3 percent in the first half of 2017 to 93.8 percent this year. Of them, game apps saw the biggest increase in gaining access to users’ private data, from 43.1 percent in the second half of last year to 88.9 percent in the first half of 2018.

As key data, location information was required by 89.3 percent of apps in the first half of 2017, and the figure saw an increase to 95.9 percent this year, said Hu Yanping, founder of DCCI, adding that apps requiring access to users’ contact data also climbed from 43.7 percent to 61.2 percent during the same period.

Although relevant laws and regulations have been introduced in China, many apps are still suspected of overusing their authorization to collect user data, said Zhou Ye, senior mobile security researcher of 360 Vulpecker Team.

Huang Xiaolin, a director of Tencent, also stressed that internet companies should self-discipline when it comes to the collection of information, usage of information and notification to the users.