Chinese social media platform TikTok tracked a British journalist via her cat's account. The messenger service WhatsApp was suspected of turning on the microphone.
And numerous other social media apps grab users' location, even if there is no reason to do so. With a few simple settings, users can protect themselves against this – most of the time, anyway. The wisdom still applies: If you don't pay anything for a product, you are the product yourself – or rather, your own data, says Zoonar's Marcus Friedrich.