Google collects significantly more data than Apple

Published on: August 24, 2018 / update from: August 31, 2018 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

recent study, Google is said to be significantly more data hungry than Apple. Accordingly, the company queries data on Android smartphones a good 40 times per hour even when they are idle, and during normal use it is even 90 times, as the graphic from Statista shows.

Even iPhones that do not run on the Android operating system are not safe from data queries - although the frequency here is significantly lower. In contrast, Apple is more reserved: there are four queries in idle mode, and 18 per hour during normal use.

You can find more infographics at Statista

According to the study, what exactly is asked also differs. With iPhones, the focus is primarily on advertising, with Android phones the location is tracked, activities in the App Store are tracked, and the authors of the study assign further data to the item “Device Uploads”. Advertising is mainly queried in active mode. Apple is particularly interested in “device uploads” when it comes to iPhones.

The study was conducted by Vanderbuilt University on behalf of the US industry association Digital Context Next. Author Douglas Schmidt, professor of computer science, simulated a normal day of use with various activities, such as distance traveled, listening to music and surfing. Google takes an active and passive approach to collecting data. Schmidt criticizes the extent of data retrieval, but also the techniques that are difficult for the user to understand and allow Google to deanonymize users.

Recently, Google came under criticism because the company requested location data from users even though they had deactivated the function. The company rejected the criticism because the function could be switched off by further deactivation. However, this is difficult for less experienced users to understand.