The British received a notification about the need to install applications prescribed by the Russian government on smartphones

A curious incident happened to the British division of Samsung: users of the Korean company’s smartphones received notifications informing them about the installation of applications prescribed by the Russian government. One of the first users to come across this notice was Andrew Edmans, his story told by the BBC.

Edmunds bought a used Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 from Amazon three weeks ago and then received a firmware update notification while using the device. In the description of the update, he noticed a message that was clearly atypical for Britain: “As part of the implementation of the requirements of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of November 18, 2020 No. 1867, mandatory applications were downloaded. Some of these apps will only be installed after you reset your device to factory settings.».

Edmunds had a logical question for Samsung and contacted tech support. They promised to respond within 48 hours, but never responded. Four days later, the user contacted Samsung again. The technician got remote access to Edmunds’ smartphone and … stated that he had never seen anything like it before.

Thereafter, the incident was due to Samsung headquarters, and in the end, Edmans was informed that there was an “error” in the update notification. Samsung told the BBC the following: “We can confirm that due to a technical error, the wording is incorrect and only a small number of UK customers will encounter it. The update has been released for the UK only, and no third-party apps from Russia are installed or have access to the device, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.».