Google uses these applications to spy on you

If you use Google Messages and Google Phone as your default messaging and phone apps, you'll probably want to change that after reading this article.

It is not at all surprising that Google uses both of these applications to spy on you - guess what - a journalist from the AndroidPolice site is clear, referring to the results of the latest study on data security.

According to Douglas Leith, a professor of computer science at Trinity College Dublin, Google Messages and Google Phone send personal data to Google's servers without the user's consent.

In his paper entitled “ What data do the Google Dialer and Android messaging apps send to Google? ” Leith details and explains what data this app collects and how it sends it to Google.

Both the Google Messages and Google Phone apps tell Google the company and its services that they are associated with when you send and receive messages and when you make and receive phone calls. This enables clear and easy connection of two devices, ie. users participating in the communication. 

Moreover, these applications collect and send information about your communication, such as hashed versions of your messages (parts of them) and the time they were sent or received, your and other people's phone numbers, records of incoming and outgoing calls, and even their duration!

What is even more worrying is that the applications Google Messages and Google Phone not only collect and send information about your messages and phone calls, according to Douglas Leith, both applications record that. Track your interactions with the interlocutors and people you correspond with and then send these records to Google. 

He gave the example of a user who reads his previous SMS conversation or searches for his contacts within the applications. The actions and time will be recorded and then sent to Google, which will allow "a detailed picture of the use of the application over time to be reconstructed," the professor explains.

There are two channels through which Google Messages and Google Phone send the collected information to Google servers: Google Play Services Clearcut logger and Google / Firebase Analytics. 

Also, since the data sent is marked with Android user ID tags, which are related to their Google account, because they are logged in to their account on their phone, Google has the ability to easily and immediately find out the real identity of the user.

It is true that Google does not hide that its applications do not collect some personal data.

According to Google, parts of messages are collected to help the company detect errors in the message application. Google also cites tracking user interactions as a technique to measure the success of an app by calculating the number of app downloads and the number of users who have used the app after installing it.

However, Google has not explained why it does everything else it does and why it is able to connect the real identity of the user based on what they send. Also, why are user data recorded in response to messages from someone who uses Google Messages and everything else mentioned in the text?