Telemetry Data is Being Shared by Google and Apple Despite the user Explicitly Opting out

A new study revealing Apple and Google’s monitoring of mobile devices is making headlines. It discusses how, despite the fact that both companies give consumers the possibility to opt-out of sharing telemetry data, the data is still shared. Both Google’s Pixel and Apple’s iPhone extract data from mobile devices without the users’ permission. Both iOS and Android transfer telemetry, according to Trinity College researcher Douglas Leith, “despite the user explicitly opting out.” 

The analysis is a component of a complete study titled “Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring the Data iOS and Android Send to Apple and Google.” Perhaps it comes out that Google gathers much more data than Apple, almost 20 times more data from the Android Pixel users. 

“The phone IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number and IMSI, handset phone number etc. are shared with Apple and Google,” as per the report. “When a SIM is inserted, both iOS and Google Android send details to Apple/Google. iOS sends the MAC addresses of nearby devices, e.g. other handsets, and the home gateway, to Apple, together with their GPS location. Currently there are few, if any, realistic options for preventing this data sharing.” 

According to the researcher’s observations, Google Pixel transfers approximately 1MB of data to Google servers during the first ten minutes of operation. For the same duration of time, the iPhone sends about 42KB of data to Apple servers. When the Pixel is turned off, it transfers approximately 1MB of data to Google every 12 hours, whereas the iPhone sends just 52KB. The report also indicated that, whether in use or not, both operating systems link to their back-end servers every 4.5 minutes on average. 

Nevertheless, third-party software and pre-installed apps that come with both the operating system were not included in the evaluations. The study focused solely on data collected by handset features and elements at the operating system level, such as Apple’s Bluetooth UniqueChipID, Secure Element ID, and the transmission of Wi-Fi MAC address. Even after not being opened or used by the user, the highlight of the study is the ability of pre-installed applications and services, which are exclusive to handset manufacturers, to connect to the network. 

According to the study, telemetry data transmission poses major privacy issues. The study does highlight the importance of sending general user data to the software manufacturer, as this provides for the creation and release of critical device and security updates for specific models.