T-Mobile's new app requested data from a customer's phone every five seconds
Earlier today, we told you that for now, T-Mobile is keeping the new T-Life app and the old T-Mobile app as the latter remains available to help with the transition to the former app. And while both apps basically do the same things, a T-Mobile customer has made quite a shocking discovery. First, we need to point out that when this subscriber opened the T-Life app for the first time, he opted out of a request to share his data. But thanks to the Pi-hole ad blocker, he saw something unsettling.
Suspicious-looking data requests spotted in the T-Life app by T-Mobile subscriber
The Pi-hole app discovered that the T-Life app was trying to send information from the subscriber's phone every five seconds to a website with the address "smetrics.t-mobile.com." While the T-Mobile customer said "It could be nothing, or it could be something," he decided to uninstall the T-Life app since he was using it only to pay his account each month. After discovering what could be a major privacy issue, the customer said that he would no longer pay via the app and plans on using the T-Mobile website to remit his monthly balance.
T-Mobile requests personal data from T-Life user and customer every five seconds. | Image credit-Reddit subscriber RandomNameNotFound
In addition to possibly being used to obtain information from its customers, the T-Mobile subscriber also points out that the constant requests for information in the background could be a drain on a phone's battery. Now we should point out that the reason that the info requests are being sent out every five seconds is probably because the customer opted out of a request to share his data and as a result, the app continually asks for the information to be sent.
There could be a logical explanation that has nothing to do with stealing a subscriber's personal data
One other T-Mobile subscriber says that, "If you agreed to the new terms after the most recent update, congratulations you are now being location tracked for the purposes of selling your information to advertisers." That is a possibility. However, another T-Mobile subscriber had a more benign reason why the T-Life app might be making these info requests. "The T-Mobile Tuesday app used to send back information about your cellular connection for diagnostic control, [trouble] shooting purposes… Looks like this is likely doing the same thing."
According to T-Mobile, the metrics collected by the carrier include:
- Location information
- Device signal strength
- System crashes
- Dropped calls records
- Battery performance
- Application and network usage data
T-Mobile says that it cannot collect personal info such as:
- No content of text messages
- No content of email or voice messages
- No content from customers’ Internet activity
- No content of online searches
- Identifying apps that are using too much memory or processing power, which could drain your battery.
- Recognizing when your device has been using a weak network signal.
- Returning your device to peak performance.
If you want to allow or block T-Mobile from collecting metrics from your phone, go to the T-Mobile app from your Android device. On Apple devices, the T-Mobile app is not used for diagnostics.
Select More > App settings > Diagnostics.
Select the Agree box to check or uncheck, then select Next.
Choose Accept or Decline for Issue Assist.
Choose Accept or Decline for Personalized offers.
Select the Agree box to check or uncheck, then select Next.
Choose Accept or Decline for Issue Assist.
Choose Accept or Decline for Personalized offers.
To install the new T-Life app on your Android phone, tap on this link.
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While we can understand that seeing T-Mobile request your personal data be sent to the carrier every five seconds can be unsettling, there seems to be a legitimate explanation. As we pointed out, opting out of the request to share data leads to requests from T-Mobile to resend the data every five seconds. And the information being shared could simply be used for diagnostic purposes.
We have asked T-Mobile to clarify this for us and as soon as we get a response, we will add it to this article.
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