Is iHeart safe to use?

iHeart integrates 60 third-party SDKs spanning infrastructure, advertising, and analytics. Its App Store privacy label declares cross-app tracking via Location, Identifiers, and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Location, Contact Info, and User Content and 4 more categories. It includes 9 advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does iHeart need?

iHeart requests 14 iOS permissions: App Tracking Transparency, Camera, Microphone, Contacts, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), Location (Always), Location (Always & When In Use), Calendars, Speech Recognition, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Peripheral, Local Network, and Siri.

What data does iHeart collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, iHeart declares cross-app tracking via Location, Identifiers, and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Location, Contact Info, User Content, Search History, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics.

How many SDKs does iHeart have?

iHeart integrates 60 third-party SDKs. 9 for advertising, 7 for analytics, 1 for crash reporting, 3 for social integration, 16 for infrastructure, and 21 for other.

Does iHeart use Facebook tracking?

Yes. iHeart includes 4 Facebook SDKs: Facebook AEM, Facebook SDK, Facebook Login, and Facebook Share. These are used for ad measurement, attribution, and integration with Facebook's advertising platform (developers.facebook.com).

Does iHeart use App Tracking Transparency?

Yes. iHeart requests the App Tracking Transparency permission, which means it asks for your consent to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites.

Does iHeart access your location?

Yes. iHeart requests location access. The developer states: "Want music recs on the go? iHeartRadio can recommend music based on your location. iHeartRadio may also use or share location for advertising and analytics.".

Does iHeart access your camera or microphone?

iHeart requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "Used to assign a picture to a support request". Microphone access is for "This enables you to record a message for the station". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does iHeart access your contacts?

Yes. iHeart requests access to your contacts. The developer states: "iHeartRadio would like to access your contacts to provide feedback to app developers".

Does iHeart run in the background?

Yes. iHeart registers 6 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to iHeart?

Other music apps include Rythmix , Zona , Shoom , Speaker Connect , Amazon Music , and ReverseAudio . Each app takes a different approach to music and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Music · Privacy report

iHeart: Play & Listen to Music

Free · ★4.8 · iHeartMedia Management Services, Inc.

Is iHeart safe?

It leans heavily on third-party trackers.

Our take. iHeart is built with more third-party tracking code than 94% of the music we have scanned.

Privacy footprint · vs 86 musicHeavy

Trackers from other companies16 · a lot

typical music: 6

Data the app links to you8 types · some

typical music: 3 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

iHeart links 8 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data iHeart ties to your identity, and it also declares it shares data to track you across other apps.

PurchasesLocationContact InfoUser ContentSearch HistoryIdentifiersUsage DataDiagnostics

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 4 companies.

Third-party SDKs found in the app, matched to the company that publishes each. Present in the code; we do not observe what they transmit.

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

Firebase, AdMob and Google analytics SDKs, built to record how you use the app and serve ads.

SDKs

🏢Other third partiesadvertising

A third-party SDK.

SDKs

🇺🇸MetaAdvertising

Facebook advertising SDKs, built to link app activity to Facebook and Instagram ad profiles.

SDKs

🇺🇸AppLovinAdvertising

A mobile advertising and monetization network.

SDK

How it compares

Where it sits among music.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one music app. iHeart sits to the right, carrying more third-party tracking than most.

Other signals

One more flag.

Each is a fact read straight from the app. The same checks run on every app we scan. Only the ones that apply here are shown.

It declares cross-app tracking

Its own App Store label says it tracks you across other companies apps and websites using your advertising identifier.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 60 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 16 are third-party trackers.

9advertising

7analytics

1crash reporting

43standard libraries

16 of the 60 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Google AdMob · Firebase A/B Testing · Firebase Core · Firebase Performance · Firebase Remote Config · Firebase Remote Config Interop · Firebase Sessions · Google Data Transport

Other third partiesadvertising

Google Interactive Media Ads (IMA) · Open Measurement (Prebid) · Snap Kit · Google UMP (Consent)

MetaAdvertising · USA

Facebook AEM · Facebook SDK · Facebook Login

AppLovinAdvertising · USA

AppLovin

Standard libraries43 · on-device

The app's own code plus open-source interface, storage and networking libraries.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v10.62.0, 2026-04-05.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 86 music in our corpus. Trackers: median 6. Data linked to you: median 3.