Muslim Pro

Muslim Pro was among the apps named in files hacked from the location data company Gravy Analytics, according to WIRED and 404 Media, who extracted the app names that sat next to location points. The list included Muslim prayer apps, Bible apps, dating apps and games. Muslim Pro said it was not aware of Gravy. "Yes, we display ads through several ad networks to support the free version of the app. However, as mentioned above, we do not authorize these networks to collect location data of our users," it said.

About ten French users of Muslim Pro prepared a criminal complaint in France against persons unknown after reports that the app sold location data to X-Mode, a broker whose customers included US defence contractors. RTL, which first reported it, said the complaint cited abuse of trust, endangering the lives of others and other offences. Middle East Eye reported the complaint also cited data protection offences. Muslim Pro told Middle East Eye it denied selling data to the US military and was ending data sharing with other companies.

Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission said it was investigating allegations that Muslim Pro sold its users' location data, and that it had asked the app's Singapore owner, Bitsmedia, for more information. The commission said apps available to Singapore users must comply with the Personal Data Protection Act. Bitsmedia denied selling data to the US military, said it shared only anonymised data for purposes such as advertising, and said it had ended its data partnerships, including with X-Mode.

A day after Motherboard's report, Muslim Pro said it was ending its relationships with all data partners, including X-Mode, which it said had started four weeks earlier. In a statement on its website it called reports that it sold users' personal data to the US military "incorrect and untrue". It said any data shared with partners was anonymised, that it never shared personally identifiable information, and that it had opened an internal investigation. Its owner Bitsmedia said the sharing supported advertising, its main source of revenue.

Affected Prayer times and qibla direction

Motherboard found that Muslim Pro, a prayer and Quran app with more than 98 million downloads, sent users' precise location to the data broker X-Mode. Its tests of the Android and iOS apps saw coordinates, the name of the wifi network, a timestamp and the phone model go to X-Mode several times. The app's privacy policy did not name X-Mode and no screen explained the transfer. X-Mode's customers had included US defence contractors. The app uses location to work out prayer times and the direction of Mecca.