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A team of researchers has discovered that some Android phones continue to track your movements, even after you turn them off.

Even if you configure your Android phone not to track and send your information, it may still do so, depending on the operating system. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College Dublin tested six versions of the Android operating system, finding that most of them never stop collecting data.

The document analyzes data traffic from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, Huawei, LineageOS and /e/OS variants of the Android operating system. Research shows that only /e/OS avoids collecting and sending data.

Every other version of AndroidOS tested will continue to collect and send your information, even after you tell the phone not to, and even when it's idle.

The information collected and where it is sent also depends on the operating system. For example, LineageOS will share your telemetry, app registration details, and third-party app data with Google.

The Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and Realme versions send more information to various companies, including themselves, Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Huawei, in particular, manages to send "...the times and duration of each app window viewed by a user".

Basically, a variety of information is sent to OS developers and third-party developers with pre-installed system apps.

As of right now, if you own or are interested in buying an Android device and have privacy concerns, a device running /e/OS appears to be the best option, based on what the researchers found.

LineageOS is probably the second best choice, since although it collects information, according to the study, it collects much less than the other four options and only sends it to one company (namely Google).