OnePlus' Co-Founder, Carl Pei has posted on the company’s official forum in which he explained why OnePlus devices collected user information and what will happen going forward
Following last week's revelation that OnePlus was collecting customer data, OnePlus’ Co-Founder, Carl Pei has responded on the matter. In a post on OnePlus’ official forum, he said that OnePlus devices running OxygenOS transmit analytics in two different streams – usage analytics and devices information. To recall, software developer Christopher Moore had discovered that OnePlus was collecting user data that included IMEI numbers, MAC addresses, mobile network names, and more. Moore had also noticed timestamps of when apps were opened and closed along with the serial number of the device.
Pei explains that usage analytics is collected through the user experience program to “better understand general phone behavior and optimize OxygenOS for a better overall user experience.” He adds that device information is shared in order to provide better after-sales support. He also emphasised that the collected information is not shared with outside parties.
“While data collection is a standard industry practice, we realize that our users have the right to understand how and why it is done. Please know that we take this matter seriously and will proactively take steps to improve going forward,” Pei said in the post.
Pei notes that users have the option to opt-out of usage analytics collection by navigating to Settings and then clicking on Advanced. there user’s will find a toggle for ‘Join user experience program’ that they can turn off. Pei also says that by the end of October, all OnePlus devices running OxygenOS will have a prompt in the setup wizard that asked users if they wish to join the user experience program. He also adds that the company will no longer be collecting telephone numbers, MAC addresses and Wi-Fi information.
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