Numerous apps had been covertly harvesting data from users.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google has banned numerous Android apps from the Google Play Store today. The apps in question were all found to have contained a special kind of code that could be used to harvest vital user information, including email, phone number, location data, and more. The apps that utilized this code ram a gamut of functions, including weather checkers, QR scanners, highway radars, and others.

“A database mapping someone’s actual email and phone number to their precise GPS location history is particularly frightening, as it could easily be used to run a service to look up a person’s location history just by knowing their phone number or email, which could be used to target journalists, dissidents, or political rivals,” said Joel Reardon, a University of Calgary researcher who discovered the code and reported it to Google.

The code was developed by Measurement Systems, an IT developer with alleged ties to a Virginia defense contractor. The owners of the banned apps have claimed that Measurement Systems paid them to include their code in the apps, and were told it was only collecting data for ISPs.

In response to these allegations, Measurement Systems told the Wall Street Journal that “the allegations you make about the company’s activities are false.”