- Edited
I'd love to get opinions on privacy on iphones vs a graphene pixel, specifically on the privacy front. For arguments sake, let us assume they are similar on the security front with Graphene likely being a little better.
For this thought experiment, let us assume that the iphone is used without icloud and siri enabled. No apple apps are used except the app store.
Both phones keep location services off 99% of the time and have minimal apps installed (browser, email, signal) and both phones use a SIM card in addition to wifi.
What got me thinking about this was this research paper:
https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
The author concludes that data such as IMEI, hardware serial #, SIM serial #, phone #, location (if location enabled) etc... are sent to Apple and Google (if using standard android) every 5-10 minutes.
My thought process is that most, if not all, of the data the author concluded is sent to apple and google is already collected and sent to your SIM provider somewhat regularly. Even if you use a grapheneos phone, isn't most of that data the author was concerned about still being collected about you, just not by apple or google? So I understand that using graphene prevents one additional source (apple/google) from getting your information which is great, but another party (sim provider) is still grabbing all of that data...?
I've heard mixed opinions on this forum about what exactly people are worried apple is collecting. Some people believe it is basic telemetry (as the author above proved with his jailbroken iphone man in the middle analysis) and some people believe it is literally everything. I haven't found many actual studies other than the one I linked to, but I would love to hear more informed opinions than my own!