Do not buy cheap smartphones that come with bloatware apps even if they are free for this reason.

We have known for a long time that if a product is free, it’s because “you are the product”, as when using the mentioned service or application, it is almost certain that your personal data and usage data (including photos) are exchanged between advertisers and other companies or entities that benefit from it.

However, what happens when the product is not free but unbelievably cheap? Well, as recently reported by The Wall Street Journal and Privacy International, cheap products can come at a high price, at the expense of our privacy.

This is the case recently reported by Privacy International after one of its members obtained a mobile phone in the Philippines. The PI member traveled to the Philippines to hold a meeting with the organization they work with. Shortly after arriving on the islands, their mobile phone crashed, so the first thing they did was to buy a cheap cell phone from a local brand. The price? $19.

Upon returning from their trip, the PI team decided to take a closer look at such a cheap smartphone. The MYA 2 model from the Philippine brand MyPhone, certified as an “Android Partner”, had its security and performance tested.

Upon deep examination of the mobile phone, they found the usual Google apps, along with some pre-installed bloatware apps. These apps, known as bloatware, may not be harmful, but can be annoying (especially when they cannot be uninstalled due to having a higher license than the system).

However, through analyzing the behavior of these apps and their permissions, the PI team discovered that, in addition to what they are supposed to do, the mentioned bloatware apps do much more, such as:

– Transmitting IMEI, user name, city, county, occupation, and gender through an insecure protocol.
– Accessing user photos and files.
– Accessing location and network information.
– Accessing text messages.

In conclusion, bloatware apps leave cheap mobile phones vulnerable to countless extremely serious privacy issues. Therefore, if you care about your privacy, we advise you to stay away from buying those cheap phones, especially Chinese ones, because, as mentioned in the introduction, in the end, you are the product yourself.