How much data do holiday season mobile games collect?

The holiday season is a time for families, joy, and, of course, fun! From decorating the house to exchanging gifts, there’s nothing like cozying up with loved ones and playing a festive game or two. Holiday-themed mobile apps, especially games, add to the excitement, offering countdowns, music, and playful distractions for all ages. But there’s more to these apps than just holiday cheer — many of them collect data, sometimes more than you might expect. So, let’s unwrap the facts and let the data snow as we analyze the most popular games from the board, family, and Christmas categories. Which apps spread joy while respecting your privacy, and which ones land on the naughty list? Let’s sleigh into it!

Key insights

• The most popular holiday season mobile games collect an average of seven unique data points, with some gathering as many as 13 — a significant portion of the 35 potential data points. Notable among the most data-hungry apps are Monopoly Go!, Hexa Sort, Bubble Pop!, and ElfYourself.
• Monopoly Go!, a popular digital adaptation of the classic board game, leads the list with 13 unique data points collected — 13 linked to the user and 10 actively tracked (shared with data brokers or third parties for targeted advertising), including coarse location. Similarly, Hexa Sort, the third most popular free board game on the UK App Store, collects 13 unique data points, 10 of which are tracked, including coarse location and purchase history.
• Free apps appear to be relatively data-hungry, collecting an average of seven unique data points compared to five data points collected by paid apps. When it comes to data used to track users across third-party networks, free apps collect an average of five data points, compared to just one for paid apps.
• Out of the most popular holiday-themed gaming apps analyzed, five are specifically Christmas-related, including games/photo editing (ElfYourself), countdowns (Santa Tracker, Christmas Countdown!), shopping list aids (Gifster), and festive music or radio apps (Christmas Radio+). These apps, often downloaded during the holiday season and quickly forgotten afterward, collect an average of six unique data points.
• Notably, four of these apps (e.g., Christmas Countdown!, Santa Tracker, and Christmas Radio+) could be continuously tracking and sharing data with third parties, including coarse and sometimes precise location. The handy app Gifster even collects personal data, such as name and email address to be shared with third-party advertisers.

Methodology and sources

We analyzed 21 popular mobile game apps selected from the UK App Store Top Board Games and Family Games list (Paid and Free)¹, alongside 5 Christmas apps highlighted in a recent Best Christmas apps for iPhone and Android by 360-Reader², which included: countdowns, photo editing, humour, music, and gift shopping aids.

The data collection information for each app was sourced from its Apple App Store page on December 4, 2024. The App Store provides a list of 35 unique data points categorized into 16 unique data point categories. We analyzed the data set according to the number, type, and handling of the data points collected by each app.

Note on data used to track the user: “Tracking refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. Tracking also refers to sharing user or device data with data brokers.”³

Data was collected from:

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