A OnePlus device has again been caught sending user information to servers in the company’s home country. The device that was found sending the information is the OnePlus 3T, which was launched back in 2016 and has since been updated to Android Oreo. The user spotted these exchanges and found that everything on his clipboard was being shared with the company.
This alert OnePlus 3T user noticed a new suspicious system app “com.oneplus.clipboard” that was trying to access the network. Upon following its IP Address, the servers it was connecting to belonged to Alibaba, which happens to be one of the biggest tech giants in China. The details of the app along with the screenshots were posted in the OnePlus Forums by the user.
Apparently, his OnePlus 3T was sending everything that was copied, including the photos, contacts, messages, web addresses, to these Alibaba-owned servers. As per the user, the aforementioned system app appeared after the recent Android Oreo beta update with December security patch. Which means that the OnePlus 3T hasn’t always been collecting this data and also the users with stable OxygenOS version are out of this.
When contacted by Android Police, OnePlus’ representative confirmed the presence of the app in the recent beta release and said:
Our OnePlus beta program is designed to test new features with a selection of our community. This particular feature was intended for HydrogenOS, our operating system for the China market. We will be updating our global OxygenOS beta to remove this feature.
It is worth noting that the company calls it a “feature” and says it to be a common practice back in China. Nevertheless, the OnePlus has confirmed that the next update will bring a fix to this issue. It was because of this aware user that the issue could surface in the first place.
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This isn’t the first time OnePlus has done something like this, back in October 2017, OnePlus was found collecting the users’ personal data. That data included some sensitive information like the IMEI number, mobile phone number, MAC address, network name, Wi-Fi connection, etc. This list also included the detailed information of exactly when an app was opened by the user and when the phone was locked/unlocked. After the public outcry, the company assured to stop collecting any kind of data.
