Muslim Pro is a prayer and Quran app, and it uses your location to work out prayer times and which way Mecca is. In November 2020 Motherboard tested it and found it was also sending precise coordinates, the name of the wifi network, a timestamp and the phone model to X-Mode, a data broker. The privacy policy did not name X-Mode, and no screen told users. Senator Ron Wyden said X-Mode's lawyers had confirmed that it sold location data from US phones to military customers through defence contractors.
A day later Muslim Pro ended all its data partnerships. It said the X-Mode deal was four weeks old and called reports that it sold data to the US military "incorrect and untrue". Singapore's data regulator opened an investigation, and a group of French users filed a criminal complaint.
A leaked sample later showed four more prayer apps selling location to X-Mode in 2019. In January 2024 the FTC banned X-Mode from selling data that could track visits to places of worship, clinics and shelters. A year later Muslim Pro's name appeared in files hacked from another broker, Gravy Analytics. The app said it did not authorise its ad networks to collect location.
What it shows
An app that needs your location for one job can pass it on for another. Here it went out through advertising code to a broker, and from the broker to buyers the app never named. After the app ended its own deals, its name turned up in another broker's files through the ad networks.
For your own record
Check which apps have your location and set it by hand where the app allows it. Ask the app who it has shared your location with, ad networks included, and ask it to delete what it holds.