Sealby
Encrypted notes and files in one private vault
Keep IDs, PDFs, recovery details and personal writing outside ordinary photo, file and notes libraries.
Explore private notes and documentsScams & malware
Can the apps on your phone share your private data?
You may have seen the news: a major dating app agreed to pay £26 million to settle a UK claim that it shared users’ personal details — including their HIV status — with outside advertising partners. It is a striking headline, but the lesson underneath it is simple and calm. Ordinary apps can pass along more about you than you would expect, and knowing how that happens is the first step to keeping your most private information to yourself.
Where to keep private documents and notes
Locked Notes
Convenient for a small number of items
Useful and built in, but less comfortable for a larger mixed library of files and media.
Cloud storage
Easy to reach from many devices
Check whether file contents are end-to-end encrypted and how account recovery works.
Files and Photos
Convenient, not a separate private space
Content remains visible to the apps, accounts and device access that normally manage it.
What “sharing your data” really means
When people hear an app “shared their data,” they often picture a hacker or a leak. This is different, and more routine. Many apps quietly include small pieces of code from advertising and analytics companies — tools the app maker adds to understand usage or to sell ads. Those tools can send details about you to the outside company as you use the app. Nothing looks broken on your screen; it happens in the background, as designed.
Those details add up into a profile that can be combined with what other companies already know about you. You do not have to be doing anything unusual for that picture to feel far too personal to hand over.
What happened with the dating app
A Norwegian research group first flagged, back in 2018, that the app was passing users’ HIV status and last-tested date to two analytics firms it used to fine-tune the app. Years later, a UK group action was brought on behalf of more than 10,000 users. In September 2026 the company agreed to pay £26 million to settle it. The company says the conduct concerns historical practices from before 2020, when it had different owners, and the settlement includes no finding or admission of liability. The point for the rest of us is not this one app — it is that a detail as private as a health status could travel this way at all.
It is not only health data
The same background sharing can apply to where you are, who is in your contacts, what you search for inside an app, and which apps you open and when. On its own, each piece can feel harmless. Combined, they build a surprisingly detailed profile — one that can be sold on, used to target you, or, in the wrong hands, used to guess things you never chose to reveal.
What you can actually do
You do not need to delete every app. A few habits go a long way. Check permissions: in Settings, review which apps have location, contacts, photos and microphone — and switch off anything an app does not genuinely need.
Use App Tracking Transparency: iPhones let you tell apps not to track you across other apps and websites, under Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking. And be choosy about what you type: treat any free app whose business is advertising as a public-ish space, and keep the most sensitive things somewhere built to hold them.
Where private things belong
Some information — health details, identity documents, personal notes, photos you would never want shared — is safest when it never sits on another company’s servers at all. Keeping it on your own device, inside encrypted storage that only you can open, takes the whole “shared with advertisers” question off the table: there is nothing to share, because no outside company ever has it. That is the idea behind an on-device encrypted vault, and it is why a zero-knowledge design matters — the maker cannot read your data, so it has nothing to pass on.
This is general education, not legal or security advice. App behaviour, settings and the details of the case described change over time — check current, reputable sources and the settings on your own device.
Quick answers
Is my data being sold right now?
It depends entirely on the apps you use. Many free apps share some information with advertising or analytics partners; others share little or none. There is no way to know from the outside, which is why the safest habit is to assume anything you put into an ad-supported app could travel, and to keep your most sensitive details elsewhere.
Does this mean the app was hacked?
No. This kind of sharing is usually built into the app on purpose, to support advertising or to measure usage — not the result of a break-in. That is what makes it easy to overlook.
Does “no admission of liability” mean nothing happened?
It is a common way to settle a legal claim without either side proving the case in court. The company agreed to pay to end the dispute while stating it is not admitting fault. It does not tell you the underlying facts either way — it just closes the matter.
How do I stop apps tracking me across other apps?
On an iPhone, go to Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking. You can switch off “Allow Apps to Request to Track,” and each app that has already asked can be turned off individually.
If I use an encrypted vault, can it still be shared?
A genuine on-device, zero-knowledge vault stores your files encrypted on your own device, so there is nothing for the maker — or an advertiser — to read or pass on. The protection only holds while the data stays there, so keep sensitive originals out of apps that sync or advertise.
Your vault is waiting.
Download Sealby and protect what matters. Setup takes under a minute, and there’s no account to create.
Download on the App Store
iPhone & iPad · iOS 17+ · Free