Nokia phones ‘secretly transmitted users’ private data to China’, Finnish authorities claim
- Nokia 7 Plus device was ‘sending location and serial numbers to China Telecom’
- Finnish manufacturer admitted software error sent data to a ‘foreign server’
- Finland’s data protection watchdog is now launching investigation into Nokia
Nokia phones have been secretly transmitting users’ personal data to China, according to Finnish tech watchdog.
The manufacturer of the Nokia 7 Plus admitted a software error caused the device to send location information and serial numbers to a ‘foreign server’.
Finland’s data protection ombudsman said the data was sent to servers of the state-owned company China Telecom.
The Nokia 7 Plus – which received stellar reviews on its release last year – has been secretly sending users’ personal data to China
‘Based on our initial analysis it appears that personal data has also been transferred (to China),’ Reijo Aarnio, Finland’s data protection ombudsman, told news agency STT.
‘The idea is that data moves freely within the EU, but when we go outside the EU, there must always be a legal basis,’ Aarnio said.
‘We are requesting information to try and find out whether there was a legal basis in this case. The second thing is how notification has worked, so were phone users aware that information about them is being transferred to China?’ he said.
The Finnish-owned manufacturers HMD Global denied that individual users can be identified from the data.
Manufacturers of the device admitted a ‘software error’ caused it to mistakenly send location information and serial numbers to servers of the state-owned company China Telecom
It said: ‘We can confirm that there has been an error in the software packing process in a single batch of one handset model, which mistakenly attempted to send activation data to a foreign server.’
‘The data was never processed and no personal information was shared with third parties or authorities,’ it said.
‘This has now been fixed and almost any device affected by this error has now installed the update. HMD Global takes the safety and privacy of our customers seriously,’ the company said.
In recent years, data security concerns over smartphones and network equipment made by the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei have drawn warnings from western intelligence agencies.
The skepticism has seen the company banned from selling its 5G network equipment to US, Australian and New Zealand markets.