With growing concerns about security and privacy, phone manufacturers are being pressured to keep their users’ data safe. Today, HMD Global announced that it will be moving its data centers to its home country of Finland in a bid to improve security and increase transparency.

A few months ago, there was a report that the Nokia 7 Plus was sending user data to China. HMD Global released an official statement to clarify that it wasn’t sharing user data with third parties but that the data being sent to China was device activation data.

They did say that shouldn’t have happened in the first place as Nokia devices sold outside China have their device activation data sent to servers in a different location (Singapore). However, a certain batch of the Nokia 7 Plus was mistakenly pre-installed with the device activation client for China which led to the user data going to the Chinese servers in the first place.

Now, HMD Global is transferring the servers from Singapore to Hamina, Finland. It is partnering with CGI, a consultancy firm with expertise in cloud and data science, and Google Cloud (data analytics and machine learning technologies) to move and store the phone activation and performance data to the Google Cloud Region in Hamina.

HMD Global, in its official press statement, said the new Nokia 4.2, Nokia 3.2, and the Nokia 2.2 will be the first set of devices to begin storing their data at the new center. Older devices that are eligible to be upgraded to Android Q will have their data migrated to the new center after the Android Q update which begins later this year and ends in 2020.

This change aims to further reinforce our promise to our fans for a pure, secure and up to date Android, with an emphasis on security and privacy through our data servers in Finland – Juho Sarvikas, Chief product officer at HMD Global.

The move is also expected to allow HMD Global better analyze phone usage and user satisfaction to further improve how its phones are made and how to provide better experiences for its users.

(Sources: 1, 2)

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