Is Target safe to use?

Target integrates 39 third-party SDKs spanning infrastructure, advertising, and analytics. Its App Store privacy label declares cross-app tracking via Purchases, Contact Info, and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Financial Info, Location, and Contact Info and 4 more categories. It includes 8 advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Target need?

Target requests 9 iOS permissions: App Tracking Transparency, Camera, Microphone, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), Speech Recognition, Face ID, Save to Photo Library, and Siri.

What data does Target collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, Target declares cross-app tracking via Purchases, Contact Info, and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Financial Info, Location, Contact Info, User Content, Search History, Identifiers, and Usage Data. It collects User Content and Diagnostics not linked to your identity.

How many SDKs does Target have?

Target integrates 39 third-party SDKs. 8 for advertising, 4 for analytics, 1 for crash reporting, 11 for infrastructure, and 13 for other.

Does Target use Facebook tracking?

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

Does Target use Google SDKs?

Yes. Target includes 8 Google or Firebase SDKs: Google Ads Conversion, Google AdMob, Firebase Analytics, Firebase Core, Google App Measurement, Firebase Core Internal, Firebase Installations, and Google Utilities. These are used for ads, analytics, and cloud services.

Does Target use App Tracking Transparency?

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

Does Target access your location?

Yes. Target requests location access. The developer states: "Target will use your location to help you find nearby stores, items and deals, support Drive Up orders, and perform internal operations. Learn more at Target.com/privacy".

Does Target access your camera or microphone?

Target requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "Scan barcodes and try AR features like See It on You and See It in Your Space". Microphone access is for "Target will use the microphone to allow you to search for products by voice. You can change this at any time in Settings". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Target run in the background?

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

What are some alternatives to Target?

Other shopping apps include Harbor Freight , AE + Aerie , Afterpay , ALDI Grocery Pickup & Delivery , AliExpress , and Victoria's Secret . Each app takes a different approach to shopping and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Shopping · Privacy report

Target: Shop. Style. Save.

Free · ★4.9 · Target

Is Target safe?

It leans heavily on third-party trackers.

Our take. Target is built with more third-party tracking code than 91% of the shopping we have scanned.

Privacy footprint · vs 80 shoppingHeavy

Trackers from other companies12 · a lot

typical shopping: 5

Data the app links to you8 types · some

typical shopping: 8 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Target links 8 categories of your data to you.

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

PurchasesFinancial InfoLocationContact InfoUser ContentSearch HistoryIdentifiersUsage Data

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 3 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.

🏢Other third partiesadvertising

A third-party SDK.

SDKs

🇺🇸MetaAdvertising

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

SDKs

🇺🇸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 shopping.

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 shopping app. Target 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 39 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 12 are third-party trackers.

8advertising

4analytics

1crash reporting

26standard libraries

12 of the 39 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

Other third partiesadvertising

Google Ads Conversion · Google UMP (Consent) · FullStory · Google App Measurement · Open Measurement (Target)

MetaAdvertising · USA

Facebook AEM · Facebook SDK · Facebook Core

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Google AdMob · Firebase Analytics · Firebase Core

Standard libraries26 · 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 v2026.12.0, 2026-04-01.

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 80 shopping in our corpus. Trackers: median 5. Data linked to you: median 8.