Spoiler alert: It’s Spain. Specifically, the region of Catalonia.
Apparently, Catalan drug dealers have been adopting Graphene OS to the point where police are assuming that every Pixel user is a suspected drug dealer.
The problem has gotten so bad, the police are resorting to malware and social engineering to seize evidence.
Per a Machine-translated excerpt from the original Spanish article by Xataka Android:
The police solution . That is none other than a Trojan. Given the impossibility of breaking the encryption, they infect traffickers’ phones with malicious software, with prior judicial authorization. In this way, they gain full access to the device: apps, images, documents and conversations. Obviously, GrapheneOS is not capable of protecting itself (like any Android) from this malware.
“To pursue organized crime, if you don’t bring in Trojans, you’re dead” . It is certainly a controversial but endorsed method. The tactic, questioned by some lawyers due to a possible lack of limits on intrusion into privacy, it has a large-scale precedent in Europe. The “Encrochat case” of 2020, in which the French police used a Trojan to carry out more than 6,500 arrests and seize tons of drugs across the old continent.
I’m curious whether their usage of the word “Trojan” refers to a zero-click attack from the likes of Pegasus and other targeted malware?
Regardless, Pixel users should not be profiled just from their supposed usage of Graphene OS. It should not be a crime to protect one’s privacy.