Sure, each time you install an app, your phone tells you what the app can potentially do. But it's hard to know much about what those apps are actually doing with those permissions. How often do they transmit your location? Are they tracking you even when you're not using the app? Are they blowing through your data cap by uploading and downloading data behind your back?

A new Android tool called SpyAware aims to shed some light on the situation. It gives you a better idea of what your phone is doing when you're not looking. No, it doesn't give you a way of changing an app's permissions. But unlike XPrivacy and other tools that do, it can run on potentially any Android phone, not just "rooted" phones that give you complete access to a phone's operating system.