Is Realme Stealing Your Personal Data? Indian Govt Orders Investigation

A Twitter user recently took to the micro-blogging platform and claimed that Realme smartphones come with a feature called Enhanced Intelligent Services that collects device information, including your personal data like call logs, SMS, location info, and other data.

A Twitter user named Rishi Bagree wrote from his handle: “Realme’s smartphone has a feature (Enhanced Intelligent Services) that captures the user’s data (call logs, SMS, and location info) and it is “On” by default. You can only see this “on” by default feature when you go to Settings -> Additional Settings -> System Services -> Enhanced Intelligent

Services,”

“Indian users are kept in the dark to share their data without their consent. This is basically forced consent since it’s on by default.

Is this data being sent to China?,” he said.

The tweet grabbed the attention of Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Information Technology, who assured to conduct an investigation into the issue. “Will hv this tested and checked @rishibagree copy: @GoI_MeitY,” Chandrasekhar tweeted.

Smartphones and mobile apps often have access to user data like location for the purpose of enhancing services and experiences. However, it becomes concerning if data is being tracked without the user’s knowledge or consent. We also checked the Enhanced Intelligent Services feature on a Realme C55 smartphone and found that the feature, which was spotted by Bagree, was activated by default on the device.

When the News18 team contacted Realme India, the company provided a statement in response. The company said: “Realme attaches great importance to the privacy and security of our consumers and we are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of data security. Specific to the issue raised, we would like to clarify that the enhanced intelligent services feature is linked to optimizing device usage to ensure that consumers get better battery life and temperature performance.

However, contrary to the current description, we do not collect any data on SMS, phone calls, schedules, etc.”

Realme claims that all data processed in this service is encrypted and stored in encrypted hardware within user’s device strictly in compliance with Android security mechanisms. This data is completely stored within the device and is not shared anywhere else or uploaded on the cloud.

“We place great emphasis on user privacy protection, the enhanced intelligent services feature can be manually turned on or off basis the needs of the consumers. The company complies with the local laws and regulations,” said Realme India in a statement.