Taking out a Google pixel smartphone from your pocket to make a call or sending a message is not well seen in this country. Do it next to police officers and you are sure they will watch you closely.
You stroll on the street when you hear the notification sound of your smartphone. You take it out of his pocket and consult the displayed message. Then you take the opportunity to make a phone call. Very trivial gestures that we perform hundreds of times without asking a question. But if you do it in some places, you will attract supported looks. Especially if you have a Google pixel.
In Spain, and more particularly in the Autonomous Region of Catalonia, the police have a sharp attitude: “Whenever we see a Google Pixel, we think it could belong to a drug trafficker“,” Declares a local anti-drug manager at the Android Xataka media. It has the merit of being clear, but why so many suspicions around the mobiles of the American company? The reason is simple.
Why the police of this country will look at you strangely if you have a pixel smartphone
It turns out that in the country, Organized criminal bands are used almost exclusively as pixel. But not for their capacity in photography. Traffickers often remove physically photo sensors, at the same time as the GPS chip and the mobile microphone. In reality, They favor them to install grapheneos, an alternative ROM known to emphasize security and respect for privacy.
Other Android smartphones can accommodate the ROM, but its developers themselves recommend using a pixel “due to better security and a long -term minimum assistance guarantee […] for full security updates and other improvements“.
Fortunately for the Spanish authorities, the system is not infallible: they manage to infect the devices with malware giving them full access to the content of the mobile. If you plan to go to Catalonia soon, do not be surprised that a police officer insistently looks at you when you take out your smartphone.
