People are noticing that their phones are getting an app called "Android System Safetycore" auto-installed without notice or consent. Check your phone for the same, it is likely it's a slow rollout instead of every device getting it installed all at the same time.
Google has all the same old reasons that they drone on about, but the actual reason is likely to harvest your messages data for training AI models.
Uninstalling seems to remove the application, and there aren't any malicious activity reported so far as I can see, but naturally that can change anytime.
Has anyone noticed this in their applications lists? Did straight up uninstalling them work? I've had some trouble removing systems apps in the past, but uninstalling this one seems to have worked straightaway - I don't see them in the list anymore.
URLs below for Reddit posts about the same:
From 2 months ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/1gpdhwz/guys_help_some_app_called_android_system/
From 2 days ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1idjbdi/googles_new_app_will_help_warn_you_about_nude/
Google already has all of your data. Why would one extra app make a difference? There background service runs as root and sends back all data every few seconds. If you put your device in airplane mode it stores your data to disk before sending it back. Modern Android also has all Google proprietary apps that collect data. That includes everything from messages to calendar
The only way to get privacy is to use something based on AOSP that doesn't have Google services framework.
i agree with the last part but i think "they already have my data it doesn't matter" approach is the worst thought about privacy. It is almost never too late. If you start to care more about privacy, they will get much less amount of data, and the previously collected data becomes outdated, thus not usable to track you
They only way to stop the data collection is to stop using Google services. Google is very intent on gathering as much as possible so you can't just stop the data collection.
only thing i'm using from them is youtube, even that is revanced and with microg