OnePlus devices are reportedly sending sensitive personal data to its servers. The company’s OxygenOS is under the scanner for tracking personally identifiable information like IMEI number,MAC addresses, mobile network names, Wi-Fi SSIDs, and the phone’s serial number.
Dear OnePlus, please stop spying on my phone https://t.co/zrnZD5UI79 pic.twitter.com/ATdXkyXUYy
— TNW (@thenextweb) October 11, 2017
A OnePlus 2 user, Chris D Moore noticed an anomaly in his device when he installed a security tool that tracks the inflow and outflow of data from his device. To his surprise, the device was making traffic requests to open.oneplus.net, which Moore discovered directed traffic to a US-based Amazon AWS server.
Hey @OnePlus_Support, it's none of your business when I turn my screen on/off or unlock my phone – how do I turn this off? /cc:@troyhunt pic.twitter.com/VihaIDI6wP
— Christopher Moore (@chrisdcmoore) January 13, 2017
The data collection has been sourced to a system application called “OnePlus System Service” which uses cannot be turned off but can be disabled every time you turn your device on.
The company has not announced any plan to fix this in the future updates. Though OnePlus claims its doing this to provide better after-sales support, most users might not be happy about being kept out of the loop all this while.