It’s one thing for manufacturers to gather user data which users have the chance to either opt in to or not, and it’s quite another to be gathering user data and without the user’s knowledge. This allegation has come up again for OnePlus, with a developer discovering that the OxygenOS software on his OnePlus 2 has been sending all sorts of data back to OnePlus-controlled servers.
Christopher Moore, the developer who made the allegation, is a software engineer by trade. The short version is that he has observed his OnePlus 2 sending back data to OnePlus which ranged from when he used his apps, what networks he connected to, and what activities he did in those apps. These data were all time-stamped and contained his phone’s serial number. Check out the source link below to check what sort of data was sent.
OnePlus has already responded to the allegation, saying that there are two streams of data that they collected. The first stream is usage analytics, and users may opt out of this. The second stream is collecting device information, and it seems – from OnePlus’s reply – that there is no way of opting out of this. Here is the company’s response:
“We securely transmit analytics in two different streams over HTTPS to an Amazon server. The first stream is usage analytics, which we collect in order for us to more precisely fine tune our software according to user behavior. The second stream is device information, which we collect to provide better after-sales support.”
Incidentally, Moore has already found a way to kill the OnePlus Device Manager, the offending app that sends out the data, via a reply from one of his Twitter followers. What do you make of this? Do you feel comfortable with OnePlus collecting this sort of data from your phone?
SOURCE: Chris Moore’s blog
RESPONSE: Android Central
