It is possible that the company will now be subjected to a GDPR investigation and slapped with a fine if the apps are found in violation.Microsoft has begun to push the Android subsystem in the Win11 test channel to make Win11 compatible with Android App. There's still no clarity on whether the Google apps adhere to the GDPR and if they have been violating them so far. Namely, to measure not only whether the app was downloaded but also whether it was used once downloaded.
IMESSAGE FOR ANDROID GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD
The ICCID data is used to support Google Fi.įirebase Analytics logging of events (not including phone numbers) is used to measure the effectiveness of app download promotions (for Messages and Dialer specifically). This can be a frequent point of failure and the phone number data is used to improve recognition by providing ground-truth based on known OTP sender numbers.
IMESSAGE FOR ANDROID GOOGLE PLAY PASSWORD
Messages automatically recognize incoming One-Time Password (OTP) codes to avoid the user having to fill them in. Phone numbers are collected to improve regex pattern matching for automatic recognition of one-time passwords sent over RCS. The message hash is collected for detecting message sequencing bugs. Google has provided an explanation of some of its data collection practices: This should be replaced by a more privacy-preserving approach, e.g., one similar to that used by Google’s Safe Browsing antiphishing service, which only uploads partial hashes to Google servers.Ī user’s choice to opt-out of “Usage and diagnostics” data collection should be fully respected, i.e., result in a halt to all collection of app usage and telemetry data. The current spam detection/protection service transmits incoming phone numbers to Google servers. Halt collection of a hash of sent/received message text. Halt the collection of the sender phone number via the CARRIER_SERVICES log source when a message is received, and halt collection of the SIM ICCID by Google Messages when a SIM is inserted.
Better still, use histogram data rather than timestamped event data, e.g., a histogram of the network connection time when initiating a phone call seems sufficient to detect network issues. The current approach of using timestamps with millisecond accuracy risks being too revealing. When collecting data, only coarse time stamps should be used, e.g., rounded to the nearest hour. When collecting app telemetry such as battery usage, memory usage etc., the data should only be tagged with short-lived session identifiers, not long-lived persistent device/user identifiers such as the Android ID. User interaction data collected by Google should be made available to users on Google’s portal (where other data associated with a user’s Google account can already be downloaded).
User’s should be able to opt-out of collection of their interaction data. Viewing of the privacy policy should not be logged/tracked prior to consent to data collection.ĭata on user interactions with an app, e.g., app screens viewed, buttons/links clicked, actions such as sending/receiving/viewing messages and phone calls, is different in kind from app telemetry such as battery usage, memory usage, slow operation of the UI. The app privacy policy should be easily accessible to users and be viewable without having to first agree to other terms and conditions (e.g. The specific data collected by Dialer and Messages apps, and the specific purposes for which it is collected, should be clearly stated in the app privacy policies. The data helps the company link the message sender and receiver and/or the two devices in the call, enabling features like spam filtering and business caller IDs. This is then shared with Google's servers using Google Play Services Clearcut logger service and the Firebase Analytics service. More specifically, these apps collect information about user communications, including an SHA256 hash of the messages and their timestamp, phone numbers, incoming and outgoing call logs, call duration, and length. A new research paper reveals that Google's Messages and Dialer/Phone apps have been collecting and sending scrambled user data to its servers, potentially violating the European Union's GDPR.ĭouglas Leith, a computer science professor at the Trinity College Dublin, claims in his " What Data Do The Google Dialer and Messages Apps on Android Send to Google?" paper that Google's Messages and Dialer apps have been sending data to the company's servers without taking explicit user consent.
However, it looks like its efforts did not go far enough. Google itself has focused on making privacy improvements to its products and services in response. In recent years, tech giants and other companies have come under scrutiny on how they collect and use user data.
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