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Nokia Phones Sending Data to Chinese Servers without User Knowledge

By Laura Tucker
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With all that we know of security being breached by apps and websites that we visit, what if data wasn’t being shared through an app or website that isn’t trustworthy and was being sent through your phone without your knowledge? That’s the case with Nokia phone owners with the handsets sending data to a Chinese server without the knowledge of the owners of the phones.

Nokia Phone Data Grab

HMD Global first revealed a Nokia-Android phone two years ago with the Nokia 6. Several different versions of Nokia phones have been released since then, including the most recent, the Nokia 9 PureView. All of these phones are made by Foxconn in China.

It’s been released that some of the Nokia phones have been sending data back to servers in China without user consent. Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported a breach on Thursday after a Nokia 7 Plus owner was told his phone contacted server and sent unencrypted data.

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NRK says that Nokia has admitted that “an unspecified number of Nokia 7 Plus phones had sent data to the Chinese service” without the users’ knowledge.

“We can confirm that no personally identifiable information has been shared with any third party,” HMD reported to Reuters. “An error in software packaging process in a single batch of one device model” caused the data to be sent to the Chinese server.

“Such data was never processed and no person could have been identified based on this data,” HMD continued. They continued that this error was fixed in February and that nearly all of the affected phones have installed the update.

Finland’s Investigation

Finland is investigating to see if HMD breached data rules. The country’s ombudsman Reijo Aarnio reported to Reuters that he will investigate if the breaches involved “personal information and if there has been a legal justification for this.”

Whether it’s been fixed or not, it’s scary to think that data is being sent directly from your phone to a server in another country and that it has nothing to do with and app or website that you visit.

Do you have a Nokia phone? Does this concern you? Share with us in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Mizfaar_shah via Wikimedia Commons and YAP123456 via Wikimedia Commons

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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