Several popular Android phones have been found to collect and share data on a large scale, including with third parties, and users cannot opt out, according to researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh. The study https://lnkd.in/eiVzvJj3 examined six variants of the Android operating system, namely those from Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Realme, LineageOS and /e/OS. Even when the phones are minimally configured and doing nothing, with the exception of e/OS, these custom Android variants send large amounts of information to the OS developer and third parties such as Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook whose apps come standard with them. It is not possible for users to unsubscribe from this data collection, the researchers said. It turns out that the manufacturers, except for e/OS, collect a list of installed apps on the device. Something that can give away sensitive information about a user’s interests. It also appears that the Xiaomi device sends data from all apps viewed by the user to Xiaomi, including when and how long each app was used. This data seems to be sent to Singapore outside of Europe.
