The State Duma told about the ways of collecting data of Russians by foreign services

Foreign services secretly collect user data using, among other things, trackers, tracking pixels, and embedded mobile applications. Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy and federal coordinator of the Digital Russia party project, announced this on July 13.

"The collection of personal data is one of the main assets of digital platforms, and many foreign services do this unnoticed by the user. They use trackers embedded in mobile applications, cookies, tracking pixels, as well as hidden requests to servers that transmit information about the user's actions, location, device, and preferences," Nemkin told RIA Novosti.

As the MP noted, the platforms collect so—called metadata - information about the context. For example, an open application can transmit information about the IP address, geolocation, device model, battery level, and installed language on the phone.

According to him, foreign services often intentionally make the user agreement complicated in order to hide the scale of data collection. He stressed that Russians always need to pay attention to the permissions that the application requests. For example, if a note—taking program requires access to a microphone or contacts, this is an alarming signal that should not be avoided.

Earlier, on July 2, a California jury issued a verdict in a class action lawsuit, according to which Google was ordered to pay $314 million for the illegal use of Android users' mobile data. It was clarified that the complaint was filed by residents of California in 2019.