| Title | Android Sends 20x More Data to Google Than iOS Sends to Apple, Study Says | |
| Date | Wednesday April 07 2021, @02:16PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the dept. | ||
Android sends 20x more data to Google than iOS sends to Apple, study says:
Whether you have an iPhone or an Android device, it's continuously sending data including your location, phone number, and local network details to Apple or Google. Now, a researcher has provided a side-by-side comparison that suggests that, while both iOS and Android collect handset data around the clock—even when devices are idle, just out of the box, or after users have opted out—the Google mobile OS collects about 20 times as much data than its Apple competitor.
Both iOS and Android, researcher Douglas Leith from Trinity College in Ireland said, transmit telemetry data to their motherships even when a user hasn't logged in or has explicitly configured privacy settings to opt out of such collection. Both OSes also send data to Apple and Google when a user does simple things such as inserting a SIM card or browsing the handset settings screen. Even when idle, each device connects to its back-end server on average every 4.5 minutes.
It wasn't just the OSes that sent data to Apple or Google. Preinstalled apps or services also made network connections, even when they hadn't been opened or used. Whereas iOS automatically sent Apple data from Siri, Safari, and iCloud, Android collected data from Chrome, YouTube, Google Docs, Safetyhub, Google Messenger, the device clock, and the Google search bar.
[...] Where Android stands out, Leith said, is in the amount of data it collects. At startup, an Android device sends Google about 1MB of data, compared with iOS sending Apple around 42KB. When idle, Android sends roughly 1MB of data to Google every 12 hours, compared with iOS sending Apple about 52KB over the same period. In the US alone, Android collectively gathers about 1.3TB of data every 12 hours. During the same period, iOS collects about 5.8GB.
Google has contested the findings, saying that they're based on faulty methods for measuring the data that's collected by each OS. The company also contended that data collection is a core function of any Internet-connected device.
[...] An Apple spokesperson also spoke on the condition it be background. The spokesperson said that Apple provides transparency and control for personal information it collects, that the report gets things wrong, that Apple offers privacy protections that prevent Apple from tracking user locations, and that Apple informs users about the collection of location-related data.
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printed from SoylentNews, Android Sends 20x More Data to Google Than iOS Sends to Apple, Study Says on 2024-04-23 07:05:52