It recently became known that Pixel smartphones send users’ personal data to its servers every 15 minutes. Google responded to the report, partially refuting the claims in the report, and also providing clarification on the mechanisms of operation of the devices.
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The initial material was published by the Cybernews resource, whose journalists studied the traffic between Google and its new flagship phone Pixel 9 Pro XL. Even before installing any application, the device sends users’ personal data to Google servers, according to the study results. This occurs every 15 minutes, and the data packet contains information such as email address, phone number, user location, network status and several other telemetry data. The manufacturer himself partially denied these conclusions.
«User security and privacy are a top priority for Pixel. You can manage data sharing, app permissions, and more during initial device setup and in your device settings. The report lacks important contextual information, misinterprets technical details, and does not fully explain that data transfers are necessary for legitimate services on all mobile devices regardless of manufacturer, model, or OS—such as software updates, on-demand features, and personalized experiences.” — a Google representative told TweakTown.
The authors of the study, according to Google, modified the device – they obtained root rights and installed intermediate certificates, so it is difficult to recreate the conditions of the experiment. And under such conditions, unscheduled data checks are possible. It is also unclear to what extent the study authors provided the system with access to the user’s personal data and whether they agreed to share information with the device manufacturer.
Cybernews journalists, according to a Google spokesperson, believe that “the potential benefits [of sharing user data] outweigh the potential threats,” but this is not mentioned in the study. But it does say that “Google is likely to retain some remote management and control capabilities for Pixel devices” in the context of CloudDPC – according to the company itself, these tools are only available through Android Enterprise for managing devices that belong to companies.