Only 4% of Android apps actually do what their privacy policies say when it comes to the data they leak in system logs.
April 23, 2026
Original Paper
Do Privacy Policies Match with the Logs? An Empirical Study of Privacy Disclosure in Android Application Logs
arXiv · 2604.18552
The Takeaway
A massive gap exists between the legal promises made by app developers and the technical reality of their software. Almost every app analyzed was found to be leaking data through system logs that their official policies claimed were protected. Consumers usually assume that a privacy policy is a legally binding and technically accurate document. This study proves that most developers are either lying or simply unaware of how their own apps handle data. It means that checking a privacy label offers almost zero protection for your personal information.
From the abstract
Privacy policies are intended to inform users about how software systems collect and handle data, yet they often remain vague or incomplete. This paper presents an empirical study of patterns in log-related statements within privacy policies and their alignment with privacy disclosures observed in Android application logs. We analyzed 1,000 Android apps across multiple categories, generating 86,836,964 log entries. Our findings reveal that while most applications (88.0%) provide privacy policies