Is Scanner safe to use?

Scanner integrates 12 third-party SDKs spanning infrastructure and analytics. According to its App Store privacy label, Scanner does not collect any user data.

What permissions does Scanner need?

Scanner requests 3 iOS permissions: Location (When In Use), Location (Always), and Speech Recognition.

What data does Scanner collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, Scanner does not collect any user data.

How many SDKs does Scanner have?

Scanner integrates 12 third-party SDKs. 5 for analytics, 6 for infrastructure, and 1 for other. None are for advertising or attribution.

Does Scanner use Google SDKs?

Yes. Scanner includes 8 Google or Firebase SDKs: Firebase A/B Testing, Firebase Core, Firebase Remote Config, Firebase Remote Config Interop, Firebase Core Internal, Firebase Installations, Firebase Shared Swift, and Google Utilities. These are used for cloud infrastructure and services, not advertising.

Does Scanner access your location?

Yes. Scanner requests location access. The developer states: "Scanner needs your location to show you police and fire incidents happening in your immediate area.".

Does Scanner run in the background?

Yes. Scanner registers 2 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Scanner?

Other news apps include 5-0 Radio Pro , ABC News , AJ English , Creators , AppAdvice , and Aungbarlay . Each app takes a different approach to news and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

News · Privacy report

Police Scanner: Crime Radar

Free · ★4.6 · Sepia Software LLC

Is Scanner safe?

It leans heavily on third-party trackers.

Our take. Scanner is built with more third-party tracking code than 41% of the news we have scanned.

Privacy footprint · vs 81 newsModerate

Trackers from other companies4 · some

typical news: 5

Data the app links to you0 types · little

typical news: 4 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

It links almost nothing to you.

Scanner's own App Store privacy label declares it links no data to your identity. That is rare, and it is a good sign.

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 1 company.

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

How it compares

Where it sits among news.

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 new app. Scanner sits to the lower left, lighter than most.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 12 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 4 are third-party trackers.

4analytics

2push & messaging

6standard libraries

4 of the 12 are third-party trackers. 2 are push-notification SDKs that deliver notifications, rather than tracking you across apps. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Firebase A/B Testing · Firebase Core · Firebase Remote Config · Firebase Remote Config Interop

Push & messaging2 · notifications

OneSignal · OneSignalLocation

Standard libraries6 · 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 v2.0.11, 2026-04-03.

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 81 news in our corpus. Trackers: median 5. Data linked to you: median 4.