Why are smartphones a greater privacy risk than old-fashioned mobile phones? Well, the same reason your PC is a higher risk for a privacy breach than your refrigerator or scientific calculatorit actually an attacker might be interested in.

Sure, feature phones contain contact lists, and most can get email, or do some rudimentary Web surfing and social networking. However, that is nothing close to the gigabytes of information that can be stored on most smartphones, or the sensitive data shared apps that might be surreptitiously leaked to app developers or other parties.

According to the Pew study, only eight percent of non-smartphone owners reported having their phone accessed in a way that made them feel like their privacy was being invaded, compared with 15 percent of smartphone owners. The fact that smartphones pose a greater privacy risk is hardly alarming. The most shocking part about those numbers is that the percentage of smartphone owners is so low.

Traditional phones are just thatphones. They can perform some other basic functions, but do very little aside from making and receiving phone calls. A smartphone, on the other hand, is a computer. That iPhone, or Android smartphone, or Windows Phone device in your pocket has as much processing power, memory, and storage as many desktop computers had just a decade ago.

Smartphones have apps. . They can track and pinpoint your location. They contain a history of websites youve visited. They store massive quantities of sensitive data about you, your friends and loved ones, your bank accounts and credit cards, and more. All of that valuable data in a tiny device that can be so easily lost or stolen represents a significant security and privacy risk.