“…smartphones aren’t really about making our lives easier; they’re about allowing private companies to profit from areas of our lives that were previously closed to them.” Max Fletcher, The Guardian

The article from which I have taken the quote is further down the page – but please read the rest of the article first, it is relevant.

I ran a post about a talk given by Matt Brittin, from Google, about their vision of privacy by design:

Privacy by Design – A Google point of view – Smart Thinking Solutions

Here is the other side of the discussion. It is based around some in depth research by Douglas Leith (Leith, 2022), looking at exactly what personal data Google has had access to from every telephone call and SMS message made on an Android device. The research involved hacking his own phone and simply seeing what data was being sent to Google.

Google needs to admit it has a data problem • The Register

The article also mentions our favourite US Governor from Missouri, Mike Parson. Who wanted to limited cyber security scrutiny, because his administration had messed up. This research shows why we must not limit academic, professional and even white hat amateur scrutiny of the systems that could violate our privacy if left unchecked.

Here is Max Fletcher’s piece from which I took my headline:

Even a mugger didn’t want my old Nokia. So why are so many people turning to ‘dumbphones’? | Max Fletcher | The Guardian

References

Leith, D. J. (2022). What Data Do The Google Dialer and Messages Apps On Android Send to Google?.