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Assuming I am using F-Droid for all apps and taking other precautions, what information is stock Android collecting? (lemy.lol)
submitted 1 month ago by flork@lemy.lol to c/android@lemmy.world
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I want to know if it's reasonable to expect a degree of privacy with stock android.

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[-] Ilandar@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago

Trinity College in Dublin has done a few studies in this area over the years. Here's a Forbes article about them (apologies in advance if it is paywalled).

Switching to open source, privacy-respecting apps is the most important part of obtaining privacy on Android and it sounds like you've done that. Whether you need to have the absolute highest level of protection against Google is really something only you can determine. For me, "stock" Android with as many FOSS replacements as possible is good enough.

[-] flork@lemy.lol 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Whether you need to have the absolute highest level of protection against Google is really something only you can determine.

Yes that's what I'm trying to determine lol but I haven't been able to know what it is Google has the power to do with stock android.

Thank you for the link to the article!

[-] anon5621@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Google play service have unstoable access to everything on they have like root rights + vendors spyware like on miui there are dozens of bad system apps

[-] flork@lemy.lol 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Understood (I think) so just to be clear, you are saying Google has the power to collet:

  • All signal Messages
  • Device Location at all times
  • Anything displayed on the screen
  • Audio around device (microphone) at all times
  • All files on the device

Is that accurate?

[-] northernlights@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago

Not so sure about the signal messages if they're stored properly encrypted by the app. But yeah, technically they could probably take screenshots. You could do a MiTM with a https proxy and look at wireshark to see what it sends.

[-] flork@lemy.lol 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You could do a MiTM with a https proxy and look at wireshark to see what it sends.

Surely a professional must have looked into this by now?

Also I don't see how Google wouldn't be able to read Signal messages if they have full unstoppable access to everything? If the user can read it, surely Google can too?

[-] limerod@reddthat.com 1 points 1 month ago

Signal uses E2E encryption. Unless, google can capture the screen displaying the message. It cannot read encrypted signal messages.

[-] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago

after removing OEM and Google bloats with Universal ADB Debloater, practically none. There are some stuff occasionally like google connectivity check, so you gotta use something like rethinkdns or afwall and only enable net access for apps you need.

[-] limerod@reddthat.com 0 points 1 month ago

Depends. Can you share the device name in question? Also, if you use the default OS or a custom rom with/without play services.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago

OP explicitly says stock Android, not a Custom ROM.

[-] Hoimo@ani.social 1 points 1 month ago

There's not really a stock Android though. Every manufacturer has its own flavor, so unless you go out of your way to build AOSP for your device, it could be anything.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, as I understand it, by "stock" Android OP meant any of these OEM-supplied Android installations as opposed to a custom version you'd install yourself. Although the "stock" Androids are different from one another, they all share the same relatively poor baseline privacy because they all send data to Google, on top of which they may also send data to the phone manufacturer and the cell network provider and possibly other organizations. This contrasts with custom versions of Android like GrapheneOS which are designed to be better for privacy and send less data to Google.

this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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