Android devices collect data on a very large scale

Android devices appear to collect data on a large scale. This is what researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh say. The research focused on various variants of Android, such as those from Xiaomi, Huawei and Samsung.

In principle, a lot of data is often collected, so that is not surprising, only that is usually something for which you either give permission or unsubscribe. However, opting out does not seem to be an option at all. Even if you say ‘no’ almost everywhere when setting up the device and you don’t log in anywhere, data is still collected from all brands, except for e/OS.

Data transfer is required

Data transfer is necessary to a small extent, because communication has to be done with the servers of the operating system, but according to the researchers, the data collection and transfer on these devices goes much further. In addition, the different brands could technically share their data with each other. The privacy of users is at stake, according to the researchers.

The data is not only shared with the phone maker, but also with third parties. Think of Microsoft, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. The researchers write: ”We see that usually several parties collect data from a handset. On a Samsung handset, Samsung, Google and Microsoft/LinkedIn all collect data. While we don’t know whether such a link actually occurs, by examining the identifiers collected collectively, we see that there is a possibility for data linking.”

Sharing data within Android

An example: “Samsung registers the Google Advertising Id, just like Google. So there is direct potential for Samsung and Google to link their separate data. Be aware that some Samsung system apps use Google Analytics. Google already makes some of their own data visible to third parties through the Google Analytics dashboard interface. Think user demographics. The limited data sharing between Google and Samsung will likely happen through that channel.”

If you don’t want all this, the researchers advise that you should opt for e/OS. This is a somewhat cleaner Android variant that you can choose yourself. There is not a particular well-known smartphone brand that works with this as standard.