An Austrian online privacy campaign group has filed a complaint against Google over what it says is a tracking code “illegally” installed on Android phones. The complaint from NOYB relates to Google’s Android Advertising Identifier (AAID) and has been lodged with the CNIL, France’s data protection authority. According to NOYB, the AAID code is created “without the user’s knowledge or consent” and “functions like a licence plate that uniquely identifies the phone of a user and can be shared among companies”.
Furthermore, NOYB (none of your business) says users do not have the option of deleting the code, with only the possibility of generating a new tracking ID. According to NOYB, the code is present on almost all of the 306 million active Android mobile phones within the European Union.
The latest complaint follows a similar one made by NOYB against Android in Austria last year. NOYB has previously used the EU’s privacy legislation to file legal challenges relating to online privacy in different European jurisdictions.
For further information on NOYB complaint against Google, click here.
Source: www.rte.ie