Your close friends, Siri, Alexa, Robin, and Cortana, are hosting a party on your cell phone.

Oh yeah – and they forgot to tell you they've been hosting a party on your cell phone every night since you purchased your device.

While you're drifting off to sleep, the party of all your personal virtual assistants is just getting started.

And here's what's so thoughtful of them: the party is just getting started as you drift off to sleep.

But instead of electronic dance music (EDM) with its heavy bass and fast tempo, they like to keep things quiet.

While you're drifting off to sleep, the party of all your personal virtual assistants is just getting started.

On a typical late night, they might access your email address, location, phone number, and IP address despite the app's published privacy policy.

Once collected, they share a variety of information with other trackers you've likely never heard of.

Electronic Friends Are the Best!

They don't talk back unless you want them to, and they do what you tell them.

But they can be sneaky.

Depending on your mobile device, you might already know Siri, Alexa, Robin, and Cortana. They have a ton of friends, mainly other apps, and they're making new ones every day.

The end game? Data tracking.

Personal data mining using data trackers is big business. It's quick, cheap, and very sneaky.

Apps send out data trackers to capture your personally identifiable information. As the trackers gobble up data on your phone, they do so at your expense. Think battery life, data plan usage, and slow load times while browsing.

If you are an iPhone user who allows "background app refresh" the trackers are likely hosting a party every night on that iPhone.

If you're an Android user, the same thing is happening to you—unless you've turned off "allow background data usage" on your phone.

You didn't give your consent to have this nightly party.

And party-goers are using your cell phone and personal data without identifying themselves.

And if you don't know who's accessing your data, how can you keep it private?

You Need to Crash This Party

Until consumer privacy laws catch up with rapidly changing technology, you must be your own advocate.

Keep as much private information out of the hands of marketing companies by adjusting your device's privacy settings, now. Review the Search & Privacy settings on your mobile device for instructions on how to disable settings that might leave you vulnerable.

And have a good night's sleep.