Many NHS-accredited Smartphone health apps leak data that could be used for ID theft and fraud, a study has found. The apps are included in NHS England’s Health Apps Library, which tests programs to ensure they meet standards of clinical and data safety. But the study by researchers in London discovered that, despite the vetting, some apps flouted privacy standards and sent data without encrypting it. The apps that leaked the most data have now been removed from the library. “If we were talking about health apps generally in the wider world, then what we found would not be surprising,” said Kit Huckvale, a PhD student at Imperial College London, who co-wrote the study.
But given that the apps the study looked at were supposed to have been vetted and approved, finding that most of them did a poor job of protecting data was a surprise, he added.
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