Possible Hidden Data Collection on Nothing OS — What Users Should Know

Amudhan_Sundararajan · 2025-10-29T01:07:37+00:00

Hey everyone, I wanted to share something important I noticed while reviewing my Nothing Phone’s network activity. It could help other users concerned about privacy and data collection. I recently used NextDNS to monitor my phone’s background connections. While most domains matched my installed apps (like Google, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Firefox, Norton), a few kept showing up that clearly don’t belong to anything I use. **Here’s what I found after filtering out legitimate traffic:** **Suspicious recurring domains:** analytics.avcdn.net → linked to Avast/AVG analytics (I don’t have any of their apps installed) [upl-image-preview uuid=af6ae0ef-b20f-48cd-b37d-ad1f57bfd340 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761699598-259471-screenshot-20251029-062727.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=6a9870b9-e4f1-4416-9c5e-e8a5271ced05 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761699618-163558-screenshot-20251029-062918.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=15e73b58-9710-4531-b8e1-70431d45f0d3 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761711968-319497-screenshot-20251029-095526.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=ce549954-a904-414d-a723-2395be68ae10 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761712007-877100-screenshot-20251029-095628.png alt={TEXT?}] mobile-collector.newrelic.com → New Relic telemetry (often built into OEM or ad SDKs) [upl-image-preview uuid=e3490c71-e050-4dd8-9b0b-c8c561db5864 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761699708-108118-screenshot-20251029-062845.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=bdbd6180-a2fb-4871-b963-72702b50c6a2 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761712057-569219-screenshot-20251029-095713.png alt={TEXT?}] sdk-api-v1.singular.net → Singular Analytics, commonly used for marketing attribution and ad tracking [upl-image-preview uuid=0bd16ff0-1bba-4641-a660-bceaff1b8b0d url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761699847-12727-screenshot-20251029-063342.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=51c15093-42e5-4fad-9f6c-434472252ac5 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761712117-463878-screenshot-20251029-095815.png alt={TEXT?}] api.revenuecat.com → seen even though I don’t use any subscription-based apps [upl-image-preview uuid=e4b0502a-1ae5-4831-92f0-52787dfd8b7e url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761699909-266712-screenshot-20251029-063449.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=76fb38e9-3761-4794-b79f-72df160e01e8 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761712172-815195-screenshot-20251029-095911.png alt={TEXT?}] cdn.shopify.com - I'm from India and I don't even use Shopify here, neither I see any Shopify related ads on social media platforms. [upl-image-preview uuid=2b49b824-d881-4ebd-b83a-039f67b3321a url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761711746-498687-screenshot-20251029-094554.png alt={TEXT?}] [upl-image-preview uuid=856386aa-2786-433d-a56e-c3ce974eb6c2 url=https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-10-29/1761711755-530301-screenshot-20251029-094810.png alt={TEXT?}] What’s more concerning is that even after disabling the Lock Glimpse (Buyoung) component completely, these connections kept appearing in my logs. This strongly suggests that the background data collection continues despite the feature being turned off, and that user consent might not actually stop it. **Why this matters** Lock Glimpse (developed by Buyoung, a Chinese partner company) is integrated deeply into Nothing OS 4.0, especially on the (3a) series. If it continues sending data after users disable it… and without consent… it could potentially violate data protection principles, including GDPR requirements for users in Europe. Even if the data is labeled as “anonymous,” users have a right to: 1. Know what data is being collected, 2. Know who it’s sent to, and 3. Have a working opt-out. **How to check your own phone** You can verify this easily: 1\. Install NextDNS or NetGuard (both free). 2\. Let it run for a few hours with Lock Glimpse disabled. 3\. Open the logs and check for any of the domains above or unknown ones sending data in the background. **What you can do** 1. Keep using NextDNS — it’s safe and effective for system-level blocking. 2. Disable or force-stop Buyoung / Glimpse components. 3. Revoke their internet permissions (via ADB or NetGuard if possible). 4. Reset your Advertising ID under Settings → Privacy → Ads. 5. EU users can report privacy violations to their national data protection authority if consent isn’t respected. **Final thoughts** I’m sharing this not to stir panic, but to encourage transparency. Nothing promotes itself as a privacy-conscious, user-first company — so users deserve clarity about what runs in the background. If other users can check their own DNS logs and confirm similar traffic, we can collectively raise it to Nothing for an official explanation or a “Clean OS” option. Let’s keep this thread factual and evidence-based screenshots or DNS logs (with personal data redacted) would really help strengthen the case. **Edit**: As per the moderator’s testing and feedback, it seems these domains are not related to Lock Glimpse (Buyoung). Since I don’t have a secondary device, I can’t factory reset and test on a clean setup myself, so I can’t fully confirm either way. I’ll keep this post up for transparency — if anyone with a fresh Nothing OS setup can check using NextDNS or NetGuard, please share your findings here. That’ll help verify whether these connections come from system components or third-party apps.

Maggi Goreng

CMF1_hacker

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CMF1_hacker

Many thanks everyone. I am genuinely curious about this and your information is very welcome.

Maggi Goreng

CMF1_hacker

Disabled Lock Glimpse yesterday at 38MB

After force stopping, clearing cache, and clearing data, I disabled Lock Glimpse — yet today it shows 66MB.

You can take a look for reference🤩 Also may I ask, does this mean Lock Glimpse is still running in the background even when it’s turned off?

Ant-e-so-shial

Maggi Goreng It shows how much it used throughout its life time. As it is an OS level feature 66MB might be its size. Click on Storage and cache we’ll see its size and confirm

RapidZapper

Amudhan_Sundararajan I can’t find any evidence those are related to Lock Glimpse at the moment, I’d recommend to remove that part for now until you can verify on a clean setup since this is quite likely to be part of one of your third party app

Amudhan_Sundararajan

RapidZapper I’ve added an edit at the end. Let me know if that clarifies things.

CMF1_hacker

RapidZapper you are correct. I don’t see anything really related to Lock Glimpse here. I want to have a look at the APK but it looks like no data is transferred that can be related to Lock Screen Glimpse, which would be pleasant.

@Maggi Goreng thanks for posting the Vilykke information to be read about it. Seems Xiaomi has had this for a few years.

Maggi Goreng

Ant-e-so-shial

As for now, it shows:
App size: 66.04 mb

User data: 0 byte

Cache: 0 byte

Total: 66.04 mb

Ant-e-so-shial

Maggi Goreng Cool then 66.04 MB is just the size of it, its not running in background.

Maggi Goreng

Ant-e-so-shial
Weird, it was only 38MB yesterday.

RapidZapper

I just had a look on 3a beta with Lock Glimpse enabled, the most that it do is fetching some news/wallpaper ready to display and other things but nothing from any of the provider presented in the main post, I’ll try to make a post with every details about it

CMF1_hacker

RapidZapper that would be very useful as it’s been a point of contention since introduction. I would have done myself, but I don’t have access to a 3a. If it was on the CMF1/NP3, I would have done such already.

I think NTL looks quite good if no data is sent when it is off, unlike Xiaomi and others, where you cant disable it.

Amudhan_Sundararajan

RapidZapper Hi, could you please share the APK name of the “ODEX Optimization” app in Nothing OS?
I noticed that Xiaomi and a few other Chinese brands used to include a similar optimization service (like CCleaner) repackaged as a system app.
It seems Nothing has a comparable component now, but I couldn’t locate its exact app name or package ID under system apps.

Could you confirm what it’s called internally?

RapidZapper

Amudhan_Sundararajan Hey

I don’t fully remember but it should be a menu in Nothing Settings app launching a routine to compile ODEX files, first party solution

flo_rahil

Amudhan_Sundararajan This is quite concerning.

The average user won’t bother with these things, it’s easy for them to fall prey to this.

Providing meaningful evidence is great, I hope productive discussion continues on this topic so that we can convince the brand to remove bloatware and look for other sources of revenue.