The Mass Damage & Consumer Foundation today announced that it has initiated a class action lawsuit against Google over its Android operating system. The reason is a new study that shows how Dutch Android smartphones systematically transfer large amounts of information about device use to Google. Even with the most privacy-friendly options enabled, user data cannot be prevented from ending up on Google’s servers. According to the foundation, this is not clear to Android users, let alone whether they have given permission for this.
For the research, a team of scientists purchased several Android phones between 2022 and 2024 and captured, decrypted and analyzed the outgoing traffic on a Dutch server. This shows that a bundle of processes called ‘Google Play Services’ runs silently in the background and cannot be disabled or deleted. These processes continuously record what happens on and around the phone. For example, Google shares which apps someone uses, products they order and even whether users are sleeping.
More than nine million Dutch people
The Mass Damage & Consumer Foundation states that Google’s conduct violates a large number of Dutch and European rules that must protect consumers. The foundation wants to use a lawsuit to force Google to implement fundamental (privacy) changes to the Android platform and to offer an opt-out option for every form of data it collects, not just a few.
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Identity can be easily traced
The research paid specific attention to the use of unique identifiers (UIDs). These are characteristics that Google can link to the collected data, such as an e-mail address or Android ID, a unique serial number with which someone is known to Google. The use of these features is sensitive. For example, Google advises against the use of unique features in its own guidelines for app developers: users could unintentionally be tracked across multiple apps. However, one or more of these unique features were found in the data transmissions examined – without exception. The researchers point out that this makes it easy to trace someone’s identity to virtually everything that happens on and around an Android device.
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Robin Edgar
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