Is Economist safe to use?

Economist integrates 14 third-party SDKs spanning analytics, advertising, and media. Its App Store privacy label declares cross-app tracking via Purchases, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Contact Info, Identifiers, and Usage Data and 1 more category. It includes 5 advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Economist need?

Economist requests 4 iOS permissions: App Tracking Transparency, Microphone, Photo Library, and Calendars.

What data does Economist collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, Economist declares cross-app tracking via Purchases, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Contact Info, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics. It collects Contact Info and Diagnostics not linked to your identity.

How many SDKs does Economist have?

Economist integrates 14 third-party SDKs. 4 for advertising, 1 for attribution, 7 for analytics, and 1 for infrastructure.

Does Economist use Google SDKs?

Yes. Economist includes 4 Google or Firebase SDKs: Google Ads Conversion, Google AdMob, Firebase Analytics, and Google App Measurement. These are used for ads, analytics, and cloud services.

Does Economist use App Tracking Transparency?

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

Does Economist access your camera or microphone?

Economist requests access to your microphone. The developer says this is for "Needs access to your microphone so you can attach voice notes to bug reports". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Economist run in the background?

Yes. Economist registers 4 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

Magazines & Newspapers · Privacy report

The Economist - News, Podcasts

Free · ★4.9 · The Economist

Is Economist safe?

It leans heavily on third-party trackers.

Our take. Economist is built with more third-party tracking code than 90% of the apps we have scanned, including an analytics SDK from Israel.

Privacy footprint · vs 2020 appsHeavy

Trackers from other companies12 · a lot

typical apps: 4

Data the app links to you5 types · some

typical apps: 4 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Economist links 5 categories of your data to you.

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

PurchasesContact InfoIdentifiersUsage 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.

🏢Other third partiesadvertising

A third-party SDK.

SDKs

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

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

SDKs

🇺🇸AmplitudeAnalytics

Product analytics, built to record detailed behaviour inside the app.

SDKs

🇮🇱AppsFlyerAttribution · Israel

Marketing attribution and audience analytics.

SDK

How it compares

Where it sits among apps.

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 app app. Economist sits to the right, carrying more third-party tracking than most.

Other signals

Two more flags.

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.

It sends analytics to a company in Israel

AppsFlyer is a Israel company. Its analytics SDK is built into the app.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 14 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 12 are third-party trackers.

4advertising

1attribution

7analytics

2standard libraries

12 of the 14 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 · Luciq Audience SDK · Google UMP (Consent) · Google App Measurement · New Relic · Conviva

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Google AdMob · Google Analytics Connector · Firebase Analytics

AmplitudeAnalytics · USA

Amplitude · Amplitude Engagement

AppsFlyerAttribution · Israel

AppsFlyer

Standard libraries2 · 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 v4.80.0, 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 2020 apps in our corpus. Trackers: median 4. Data linked to you: median 4.