When buying a Chinese brand mobile phone, some people will consider buying it locally in China in order to save money, or if they want to get it at the first launch, or even if it is not sold in Taiwan or internationally, but if you are a person who pays attention to security and privacy People, you may have to think regarding the recent research report published abroad. The survey pointed out that several well-known Chinese brand mobile phones have built-in spyware, which will quietly collect user usage data behind the scenes.
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Foreign research points out that Chinese Android phones have built-in a lot of spyware, and it is recommended not to buy mobile phones in China
According to reports from foreign media The Register and Gizmodo, Haoyu Liu and Paul Patras of the University of Edinburgh and Douglas Leith of Trinity College Dublin published a joint research survey a few days ago, which pointed out that Chinese mobile phones have serious security tracking risks, even if The same goes for taking it abroad.
They analyzed the Android applications installed by three well-known smartphone brands in China, including: OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Oppo Realme, checking the operating system and the data transmitted by the applications, but excluding the apps installed by users themselves, that is, only observing the phone’s default settings built-in content. Furthermore, no cloud services or third-party services are used.
Take Xiaomi Redme Note 11 as an example, Baidu input method, HKUST Xunfei input method and Sogou input method are built-in when you buy it. In OnePlus 9R and Realme Q3 Pro, there are Baidu Maps and Gaode Maps. There are also many news, online video and online shopping applications.
And the collected PII includes a lot of sensitive data like basic user profile such as: phone number and persistent device identifier (IMEI and MAC address, ID, etc.), geolocation (GPS coordinates, which can reveal your actual location) user profile (Mobile phone number, App usage patterns, etc.), and data related to “social software”, such as: contacts, text messages, their phone numbers.
In other words, when the data is transmitted to the recipient, they can clearly know who is using the device, where and who they are talking to, which poses a great risk to personal privacy. The Chinese mobile phone number is tied to the national ID card number, which means that the real identity of the user can be known.
Taking the picture below as an example, the researchers said that whenever the settings, preloaded notes, voice recorder, phone, SMS and camera applications of the Redmin phone are opened, a request will be sent to the URL “tracking.miui.com/track/v4”, even if When the user chooses to refuse “send usage and diagnostic data” when the device starts, it will also send:
All this data is collected without notice and consent of the user, and there is no way to object. What’s more, the study says that while privacy laws vary from country to country, collection doesn’t stop when devices and users leave China.
The third-party apps preloaded on Android phones in China are basically three to four times more than those in other countries, so in general, for those who pay attention to personal security and privacy, it is recommended not to buy Android phones in China, even for well-known brands. .
Data reference source:The Register、Gizmodo