According to a study by Douglas Leith, a researcher at Trinity College in Ireland, Google collects and transmits certain data to its servers without users’ consent.

In recent years, it has come to light how different companies collect and manage user data. In response, Google has focused on providing more privacy improvements to its products and services, but this does not appear to have been fully achieved.

According to a recent study by Douglas Leith, a researcher at Trinity College in Ireland, the messaging app, messaging and the phone app from Google, which collects calls, also collects user data and sends it to the company’s servers, which may violate EU data protection. Law, General Data Protection Regulation.

According to Leith, the two apps send metadata without asking users for consent. Based on the study

  • The hash generated by the SHA-256 function that encrypts the messages,
  • Message timestamp
  • phone numbers
  • list of incoming and outgoing calls,
  • call duration and
  • call length

It also accesses Google’s servers. In principle, the data allows for spam filtering, for example. However, according to Leith, in the case of SMS, it is possible to decrypt the original message from the hash code, he writes Android Police. However, this does not mean that this has already happened.

The expert also notes that although Google has indicated that it will collect data from users to filter spam, for example, the company does not explain why the content of messages and call history is needed.

Leith also told Google why data collection is an issue, with some changes the company has already made.

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