Germany wants to force phone manufacturers to 7 years of updates
Seven years, that’s how long the German government wants smartphone makers to keep rolling out security updates for their phones. This is apparent from a plan from the German government, and that proposal goes further than a plan being worked out by the European Commission.
German plan smartphone updates
Over the past two years, we’ve seen smartphone manufacturers take steps to present a better update policy to their users. Samsung phones now get security updates and three version updates as standard for four years. On the other hand, other brands such as OPPO and OnePlus will follow. And there are rumors that Google will go even further and support its Pixel devices for five years.
The German government believes that it is not going fast enough, because they propose that telephone manufacturers support their devices for seven years. During that time, they must roll out security updates according to a new proposal, as well as make spare parts available, Heise Online says.
Germany goes a lot further with this than a proposal by the European Commission that guarantees five years of updates for customers. Smartphone manufacturers reject the proposal. DigitalEurope, a collective that represents the smartphone industry and that includes Apple, Samsung and Huawei, would like to achieve a lower standard: three years of security updates and three years of version updates. Furthermore, the manufacturers only want to continue to supply replacement screens and batteries, because other parts rarely break, the companies say.
The role of chip manufacturers
Rolling out security updates is not only the responsibility of phone manufacturers, but also chip makers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek. As soon as manufacturers are obliged to support their devices for longer, they will have to provide longer protection for each individual chipset they release. At the end of last year, Google, together with Qualcomm, proposed a system that should help chip developers to roll out security patches faster, but that only came into effect for the Snapdragon 888 processor for the time being. There may be ways to implement this simplified update model more widely.
What do you think, is seven years of support a reasonable proposition, or are you happy if manufacturers continue to support your phone for five years? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this article.
