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MetaMask Collects User Data — What Can You Do About It?

The leading digital wallet collects data of all kinds with the new update.

By Finst News
• 4 min read
MetaMask Collects User Data — What Can You Do About It?

The leading digital wallet collects data of all kinds with the new update. Is it a threat to privacy?

For 31 million active users, MetaMask grants access to the crypto world, mainly for Ethereum. Coins can be stored and sent in the digital wallet at the user's own risk. Until now, everything was anonymous, but that's changing. This comes from all the discontent caused in the crypto community. For example, the company behind MetaMask, ConsenSys, announced an update to its privacy policy, stating that from now on user data will be collected. This happens when MetaMask is used via the Infura client, which is set as the default.

According to information from the wallet, data such as identity, home address, email addresses, phone number, usernames, passwords, credit cards, bank accounts, IP address, and wallet address can be collected.

CEO of MetaMask apologizes

"It was fun while it lasted, MetaMask, but I value my privacy," tweeted Pixelvault moderator Gooniebrad. And called for a "wallet change ASAP." Beastlyorion, a Cardano staker, wrote: "I think it's time to stop using MetaMask." The MetaMask CEO also spoke on Twitter, with an apology: "I think we can fix this quickly. We do not use IP addresses, not even if they are stored temporarily, which is unnecessary because we don't use them anywhere."

Crypto analyst Insightful posted instructions on Twitter on how to configure MetaMask to avoid data collection. You need to use Alchemy for this. You can find all the steps in the thread.

Uniswap also announces a new privacy policy

MetaMask's update comes shortly after Uniswap, the largest decentralized crypto exchange, announced a new privacy policy. Earlier this year ConsenSys, the company behind MetaMask and Infura, raised more than $450 million in a Series D round. With a valuation of seven billion dollars, it is one of the biggest players in the crypto space. ConsenSys was founded by Joseph Lubin, one of Ethereum's co-founders.

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