HMD Global has announced that it is preparing to move and store phone activation and performance data of its Nokia smartphones to Google Cloud servers in southern Finland's city of Hamina.
The Finnish HMD Global, which has an exclusive licence to produce and market Nokia-branded phones, said it has partnered with Google and Canada-based IT consultancy firm CGI to make the switch.
The company's chief product officer, Juho Sarvikas, said moving the data would add new levels of security to its line of Android-based phones.
In March, reports emerged from Norway that some Nokia handsets had sent user data to servers in China.
"Promise to fans"
The issue was fixed by HMD before the matter was made public, and according to industry reports the company explained what kinds of user data was collected, and where it was stored. According to digitaltrends.com Nokia handset user data has been stored on HMD servers in Singapore, and managed by Amazon Web Services.
"We want to remain open and transparent about how we collect and store device activation data and want to ensure people understand why and how it improves their phone experience. This change aims to further reinforce our promise to our fans for a pure, secure and up to date Android, with an emphasis on security and privacy through our data servers in Finland," Sarvikas said in a press release issued Tuesday.
The firm said the first Nokia smartphone models that will begin automatically storing data at the Google facility in Finland will be the Nokia 4.2, 3.2 and 2.2 handsets.
User data from older smartphone models will be migrated to Hamina once the next version of Android (Q) is pushed out later this year and into 2020, according to the company.