Modern Devices And Applications Usually Collect Various Data And Information About Their Users And Send It To Developers To Deliver Targeted Ads And Improve Various Segments.

However, sometimes this collection process goes beyond normal limits and violates users’ privacy.

Top Android smartphone makers in China are collecting an alarmingly large amount of data that could potentially lead to user tracking and privacy violations, new studies show.

China is currently the largest smartphone market in the world, and more than 70% of phones in this country use the Android operating system.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College Dublin have found that smartphones made by major Chinese brands, including Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Realme, sold in China send large amounts of data to third-party and sometimes anonymous sources without the user’s consent.

Authentic Chinese phones are under the microscope.

According to the researchers, most Chinese phones come with many pre-installed system apps, and these apps have a lot of default access privileges.

This level of access allows pre-installed apps to collect various information, including persistent device identifiers, the user’s current location, profile, and some information related to the user’s social relationships.

In these studies, the user is assumed to be a privacy-conscious consumer who opts out of data analysis by developer companies and does not use cloud storage and optional third-party services.

Investigations show that the phones mentioned above collect various information, which includes:

• Device identifiers such as IMEI numbers and MAC address
• Identifiers related to devising location, such as GPS, which can display your current location
• User-related settings and information, including phone numbers, application usage patterns, and application performance data
• Data related to the user’s social relationships, such as call history, text messages, and dialed numbers.

There is currently no way around this problem.

Currently, users are not informed about collecting and transferring this data to different platforms, and there is no way to opt out of this process.

According to the researchers, this data can easily be used to identify people and accurately track them.

Of course, this analysis is based on mobile devices sold in the Chinese domestic market with the local Android operating system, so consumers in international markets need not worry for now.

However, people who bought their smartphones from the Chinese market, such as travelers and students, should be cautious; in these,e studies, it has been determined that the data collection behavior by these applications does not change even after the user leaves China.

Finally, it is worth noting that Chinese versions of the Android operating system usually come with three to four times more default apps, so pre-installed apps on these phones have eight to ten times more access permissions.