The Information Commissioner’s Office, the independent UK authority responsible for promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals, has warned consumers to protect their personal information when installing new mobile apps.

A UK-specific survey carried out by the ICO earlier this month found that 59% of adults in the UK had downloaded a mobile app, although 62% of these people were concerned about the way apps could use their personal information.

Mobile content and commerce group MEF has published its third annual mobile consumer survey, which involved 10,000 respondents from 13 countries.

It notes that the number of purchases via mobile devices has fallen for the first time, from 54% of mobile media users last year to 42% in 2013, but the value of individual purchases is going up.

It's been a week of diverse mobile headlines in which Jolla started selling its Sailfish smartphone, mobile shopping broke records and BlackBerry's CEO looked to the future.

We're also talking about smartphones for seniors, battery life, a looming spectrum shortage, phone theft and Sony's Smart Wig. Something for everyone, surely!

Mark Bridge writes:

It was a relatively quiet time for tech news last week, with many companies taking a day off to celebrate Thanksgiving in the USA and then planning for a present-buying retail frenzy on ‘Black Friday’. Today the focus on Christmas shopping moves online; a day that’s called either ‘Cyber Monday’ or ‘Mega Monday’ if you work for a news organisation.

Yet it wasn’t an entirely newsless week.

This week we're talking about two big announcements from BlackBerry: a luxury smartphone and some major management changes.

We also discuss the latest Samsung/Apple patent ruling, Vodafone's new mobile wallet, Android licensing, Doro's anti-virus deal, BYOD and the rise of the 'selfie'.