- Proton found most Android free games send data to foreign ad-tech
- In the US alone, games sharing data with China were downloaded 15.8 million times in a single month
- Experts advise using a VPN with built-in tracker blocking, or paying for ad-free games to protect your privacy
Right now, there is a good chance you have a free game on your phone. It costs nothing to download, and it seems harmless enough, apart from the occasional intrusive ad. However, a new study reveals that your data is likely paying the hidden price.
Secure email and VPN service provider Proton has warned that the most popular free mobile games are infested with data trackers.
By analyzing the top 100 free-to-play Android games on the Google Play Store — which have collectively been downloaded almost 20 billion times worldwide — Proton found that the vast majority send gamers’ personal data abroad. Much of this data goes to ad-tech companies headquartered in China, Russia, Israel, and Five Eyes nations.
According to Proton, this “paints a disturbing picture of an industry that routinely includes trackers sending large amounts of highly personal data to countries hostile to privacy, with minimal transparency and no meaningful accountability.”
These aren’t niche rogue apps, either. The list includes household names like Block Blast!, Disney Solitaire, and Subway Surfers. While game developers obscure exactly what data is collected, these trackers are capable of harvesting your device type, usage habits, payment information, age, gender, and even your physical location.
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The global scale of mobile game tracking
To understand the sheer volume of data being harvested, Proton examined the top 100 games across multiple regions for the month of May 2026. The findings are staggering.
In the US, the top 100 games were downloaded almost 20 million times in a single month. Of those, games actively sharing data with Chinese companies accounted for 15.8 million downloads, while 13.7 million downloads were found to be sharing data with Russian entities.
The UK tells a similarly bleak story. Out of 3.6 million downloads in May, 3 million contained Chinese trackers and 2.7 million contained Russian trackers.
A staggering 99% of total UK downloads included trackers funneling data back to Five Eyes entities, meaning personal information could be widely shared among allied government intelligence agencies. The research found that games in the UK contained up to a whopping 36 different trackers per app.
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Why location tracking matters
Of all the information hoovered up by ad-tech companies, location tracking remains the most alarming. In the US, games containing location trackers were downloaded 1.7 million times in May. In the UK, that number reached 300,000.
While games like Pokémon GO have a legitimate reason to know your GPS coordinates to function, Proton notes that simple puzzle or coloring games have absolutely no need for it.
“Location information deserves particular attention, because location data is not just data. It’s a record of your life,” Proton’s report warns. “It tells whoever holds it where you work and where you sleep. It records whether you attended a protest, visited a medical clinic, went to a place of worship, or met with someone you’d rather keep private.”
When data is sent to ad-tech companies in countries like Russia or China, potentially adversarial governments can gain access to millions of people’s personal information.
Furthermore, even if the data goes to a legitimate advertising firm, it can still be stolen. Proton highlighted a November 2025 data breach at Mixpanel, a product analytics platform used by games like Roblox, which allowed hackers to steal user-identifiable metadata.
How to stay safe
Sending personal data to data-broker networks is the foundational business model of the free-to-play ecosystem. As Proton bluntly states: “If you don’t pay for a product, you are the product.”
So, how can you protect yourself? If you want to keep playing without handing over your GPS coordinates to Moscow or Beijing, you need to block the tracking at the source. To defend against this invasive data harvesting, experts recommend using the best VPN services equipped with built-in ad and tracker blockers.
Tools like Proton VPN’s NetShield filter DNS requests, meaning that when an app attempts to load a known tracker, the request is killed before your data can leave your device.
Alternatively, the simplest solution is to pay for your games upfront, which usually guarantees a tracker-free and ad-free experience.
