A few days ago, there were reports that HMD Global was sending user data to China. The affected model is the Nokia 7 Plus and the issue was reported to affect several units of the phone sold in Norway. Yesterday, HMD Global released an official statement to clear the air on the matter.
According to the Finnish company which manufactures its phones in China via FIH Mobile, the Foxconn subsidiary, the Nokia 7 Plus didn’t share personal data with any third party. What the phones did send to a third party server in China is actually device activation data. However, this shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Apparently, a certain batch of Nokia 7 Plus meant for countries outside China had the device activation client for China mistakenly installed on them, instead of that of the right country variant. HMD Global says the issue was fixed in February and almost all owners of the Nokia 7 Plus from the affected batch have installed the fix.
Below is an infographic that explains the data collected from users :
Nokia 7 Plus devices that already have the fix installed have build number “00WW_3_39B_SP03” or “00WW_3_22C_SP05”. You can check the build number by going to Settings > System > About Phone > and then scroll down to “Build Number”.
HMD Global says only devices sold in China have their data stored in China while the user activation data and user experience data (for those who opt-in for the latter) of the global variants are stored on their (HMD Global) servers in Singapore which is provided by Amazon Web Services.
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The manufacturer also debunked the rumor that other Nokia phones are sharing user data with third-party servers. “We can confirm that this is incorrect speculation and no Nokia phones are impacted.”. HMD Global also used the opportunity to reassure users that it takes their privacy and security seriously and complies with applicable privacy laws.
(Source)
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