Researchers at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh have analyzed personal data that is shared by several brands of Android and Roma alternative smartphones.After having verified that sharing personal data or telemetry was deactivated on the devices tested, as well as the location features (the devices could in theory only make calls and send SMS), the researchers realizedthat most smartphones on the market continued to share a considerable amount of data on users.With the manufacturer, but also many third parties!
"The variants of Android from Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and Realme transmit a substantial volume of data to their manufacturers as well as to third parties which have pre-installed applications", are alarmed by researchers in their study.In other words, these smartphones share a considerable amount of personal data with the brand as well as third -party services like Facebook, and applications you have installed - without the user being able to prevent it.Of course, we can understand the sharing of certain data with the brand and the services of Google.
Do you have an Android smartphone?Install an alternative ROM like wolfing or / /e /bone to protect your personal data
But for the rest, it should be possible to deactivate everything.Open source alternatives tested by researchers, namely Lineageos and /E /OS share much less data.In fact, Lineageos only shares data with Google for the normal functioning of smartphone services.As for /E /OS, configured in the detailed conditions above, the operating system strictly shares any personal data with anyone.In their study, researchers have nevertheless gone more law - to characterize the data that is really transmitted.
They were able to compile the following table:
© Trinity College / University of Edinburgh
What is quite worrying is that all brands share unique identifiers on the device - namely the IMEI number and / or the serial number.Huawei even goes so far as to recover the RSA encryption certificate of the device which allows you to decipher data.There are also many advertising identifiers.They remain the same, according to the researchers, even when configuring the devices to reset it.This means that even when you think that advertisers can no longer follow you on your smartphone - hunt for personal data can continue with impunity.
Sometimes the collection between nevertheless in another dimension.The Xiaomi smartphones transmit for example to the brand the duration of your calls without anyone really knowing why.Google siphonne The metadata from the messages application.Huawei collects data from the default Swiftkey keyboard and sharing them with Microsoft.The lesson of this study?Do not trust Android manufacturers when it comes to your personal data.With the risk, in certain regions of the world, that this exploitation has real consequences for user safety
There is nevertheless a glimmer of hope.The study highlights the relevance of alternative ROMs such as willing and /e /bone even though the use of this type of installation tended to regress in recent years.These alternatives more respectful of your personal data are the only real ways to protect your personal data on an Android smartphone.Finally, let's finish with a little reflection.By not carrying out the analysis on iPhone, the researchers give hollow the impression that Apple smartphones do better in terms of personal data protection.
Read also - the flight data explodes, how to protect yourself?
However, it is not possible to conclude it without carrying out the same tests on iPhone.We can also note that by installing an alternative ROM, Android users can escape the collection of personal data from their manufacturer.Which is impossible on the iPhone due to the strict locking of the platform.