Privacy Guides

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Any benefits in buying and setting up a cellphone while traveling to a country with strong(er) privacy and RF emission laws? (self.privacyguides)

submitted 1 year ago by varsock to c/[email protected]

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I have a device that reached end-of-life support and I'm burned out loading ROMs to extend it's support. Upon from my return from the trip I plan on purchasing a new device anyway, so buying one while traveling is also an option.

I'm traveling to a European Market that has stronger privacy rules GDPR and their devices must have lower SAR (regarding phone RF emissions).

Regarding RF and SAR

My carrier frequency bands in my home country are supported by European phones I'm looking at (Android and Apple). But do the phones dynamically manage the RF emission based on locale or are the limited at hardware or software?

Would purchasing the device abroad have an effect I think it does when I bring it home?

Regarding Privacy

This one is tricky, typically the account (gmail or Apple ID) is associated with the locale. If I were to create a new account and set up my device while abroad, will this have lasting effects? I have a friend who have immigrated and set their devices up abroad and their locale is still their OG country. One of them changed locales (for android) because spotify (app) wasnt available in their home country locale. So I speculate this is a solid approach if I were to do so.

I know I might have issues with availability of content (downloading from app stores). But as far as accounts go, my Spotify (and netflix if i stil had it) account is associated with my home country so I will still be able to watch shows in my locale. Being able to download the app is the limiting factor but there are ways to get around that with side loading.

So yeah, if anyone has experience with this and could call out some things I didn't consider or validate my expectations, would be appretiated.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can share a bit and confirm your expectations about the locale part. I moved to a different country and didn’t need to change my locale for a couple of months until I was forced to because some apps I needed (banking, transit, etc.) weren’t available in the app store unless I changed it. Other than that I didn’t seem to have any major issues. I believe subscriptions can also be tied to your method of payment (i.e. which country your credit card was issued) rather than locale, but that will vary depending on the app.

[–] varsock 1 points 1 year ago

that is on-par with my experience.

If on android, you can visit a google app store mirror (like aurora) which has all apps not locked to a region. Meaning, you can get that transit app.

On iOS, there is no side loading to get around that at the moment.