We just saw that the OnePlus 5 has started receiving the OxygenOS 4.5.12 update bringing in a lot of bug fixes and the September security patch. Besides this, the company is in the headlines for privacy concerns as well.
Well, OnePlus has been allegedly found guilty of breaking the customers' trust. According to an Android Police report, the security researcher Christopher Moore has discovered that the company is collecting personal information from its users. Last year, he discovered that his OnePlus 2 was sending data to a HTTPS domain that belongs to OnePlus without his consent.
On analyzing the data that his smartphone was sending to open.oneplus.net domain, he got to know that the information about the screen, serial number, IMEI, MAC address, device unlock events, IMSI numbers, mobile network names, abnormal reboots, and wireless network ESSID and BSSID were being shared.
He also discovered that the OxygenOS gathers tie stamps of when the apps were opened and closed and other activities those were carried out. There are two apps those were blamed for the collection and sharing of the personal information with the OnePlus domain. These apps were found to be the OnePlus Device Manager and OnePlus Device Manager Provider.
Though Moore contacted the company regarding the privacy issue earlier this year, he was taken through the troubleshooting suggestions and the communication was terminated completely. Recently, someone discovered a workaround that lets the OnePlus users disable the OnePlus Analytics without rooting their smartphones. To do so, the users have to disable the app permanently using the command - pm uninstall -k --user 0 pkg.
OnePlus has still not revealed any official statement regarding these privacy accusations. In fact, the company is accused of allegedly trying to hide the information from the public as this issue might leave a bad impact on the brand name.
