Is Walgreens safe to use?

Walgreens integrates 93 third-party SDKs spanning infrastructure, analytics, and media. Its App Store privacy label declares cross-app tracking via Purchases, Location, Contact Info, Search History, Browsing History, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Other Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Health & Fitness, Purchases, Financial Info, and Location and 7 more categories. It includes 1 advertising or attribution SDK. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Walgreens need?

Walgreens 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, Face ID, Save to Photo Library, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Peripheral.

What data does Walgreens collect?

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

How many SDKs does Walgreens have?

Walgreens integrates 93 third-party SDKs. 1 for attribution, 15 for analytics, 1 for crash reporting, 1 for social integration, 16 for infrastructure, and 53 for other.

Does Walgreens use Google SDKs?

Yes. Walgreens includes 15 Google or Firebase SDKs: Firebase A/B Testing, Firebase Core, Firebase Performance, Firebase Remote Config, Firebase Remote Config Interop, Firebase Sessions, Google Data Transport, Firebase Crashlytics, Google Sign-In, Firebase Core Extension, Firebase Core Internal, Firebase Installations, Firebase Shared Swift, Google Toolbox for Mac, and Google Utilities. These are used for cloud infrastructure and services, not advertising.

Does Walgreens use App Tracking Transparency?

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

Does Walgreens access your location?

Yes. Walgreens requests location access. The developer states: "To find your nearest Walgreens store, find nearby health services, and surface in-store features when you shop at Walgreens.".

Does Walgreens access your camera or microphone?

Walgreens requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "To enable features that use live photo and video, barcode scanning, and augmented reality across the app". Microphone access is for "Speech recognition is required for app features that use the microphone, including voice search and live video capabilities". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Walgreens access your contacts?

Yes. Walgreens requests access to your contacts. The developer states: "To assign your doctor’s name to your medications in Pill Reminder.".

Does Walgreens run in the background?

Yes. Walgreens registers 7 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Walgreens?

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

Walgreens

Free · ★4.8 · Walgreen Co.

Is Walgreens safe?

It collects a lot of your data, and shares it with trackers.

Our take. Walgreens carries 16 third-party trackers and its own label declares it links 11 categories of your data to you. It collects a lot itself, and shares a lot with outside companies.

Privacy footprint · vs 80 shoppingHeavy

Trackers from other companies16 · a lot

typical shopping: 5

Data the app links to you11 types · a lot

typical shopping: 8 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Walgreens links 11 categories of your data to you.

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

Health & FitnessPurchasesFinancial InfoLocationContact InfoUser ContentSearch HistoryBrowsing HistoryIdentifiersUsage DataOther Data

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 partiesanalytics

A third-party SDK.

SDKs

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

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

SDKs

🇺🇸BranchAttribution

Deep linking and marketing attribution.

SDK

🏢Analytics SDKAnalytics

A product analytics platform.

SDK

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. Walgreens 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 93 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 16 are third-party trackers.

1attribution

15analytics

1crash reporting

76standard libraries

16 of the 93 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 partiesanalytics

Adobe Analytics · Adobe Experience Platform · Adobe Identity · Adobe Lifecycle · Adobe Rules Engine · Adobe Services · Medallia Digital

GoogleAnalytics · USA

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

BranchAttribution · USA

Branch

Analytics SDKAnalytics

mParticle

Standard libraries76 · 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 v111.1, 2026-04-04.

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.