Some entry-level and budget smartphones, which are immensely popular in emerging markets, have been spotted prying into the users’ data and illicitly sharing the information with third parties that users are unaware of. The incongruous mix of Android phones in the market has frequently been criticised for the low-quality interface and user experience. However, due to their price being the high driving factor, users in the developing countries tend to overlook user privacy for affordability.
As per a report by The Wall Street Journal, a Chinese smartphone maker Singtech has been snooping into the private information of the users of its P10 budget smartphone, mainly in the countries of Cambodia and Myanmar. The company has preloaded an app on all the P10 units that seems to have been syphoning off the user data such as MAC address and IMEI number to a Taiwanese mobile advertising company, General Mobile Corp. The report further mentions that this app has been found on few smartphones in Brazil and that have been manufactured by firms based out of India and China.
The app in question belongs to GMobi, a Taipei-based company that also has its subsidiaries in Shanghai and New Delhi. The company has claimed that it uses the data to offer targeted advertisements to the users and that it shares the same data with the manufacturers to help them learn more about the users. The GMobi app has been said to be helpful to the manufacturers in rolling out software updates at no cost, which is why it has been permitted on the smartphones in the first place.
“If end users want a free internet service, he or she needs to suffer a little for better targeting ads,” a GMobi spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report. GMobi has listed some big mobile brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and Blue as its device partners, however, all three firms told WSJ that they have never engaged in any sort of partnership with GMobi.
Another firm, the report says, has been found passing the user data is MoMagic. MoMagic has listed Xiaomi, Intex, Micromax, Panasonic, and Sony as its device partners and firmware-updating tool. The report quotes Chief Executive Arun Gupta saying that the company follows “the laws of the land”. The report says that Xiaomi has denied working with the firm now, while Intex has said it uses the firmware update tool but does not collect any user data. Micromax declined to comment on the partnership. However, the MoMagic website mentions that it does collect the IMEI number, IP address, and geo-location data of the user in “some countries”.
“In some countries, we also collect information such as international mobile equipment identity (IMEI), Internet (IP) addresses or geo-location data, which may be considered to be personal information and in which case, we ensure compliance with applicable laws in our collection or use of the same, to the extent applicable in such jurisdictions,” the company website notes. Gupta separately told Financial Express Online that the company is compliant with the jurisdiction followed in India and other South Asian countries. “For data and privacy, we follow all regulations and laws of India and South Asian countries we operate in. We take all required user permission for all the platforms that we operate in. The unwarranted and unverified claims that following Indian laws means not taking user permission is the handiwork of vested interests to damage Indian digital marketing sector,” Arun Gupta said.
UPDATE: This article has been updated to include MoMagic’s statement.
