In an announcement made on Ubuntu mailing list, Will Cooke, on behalf of the Ubuntu Desktop team, announced Canonical’s plans to collect some data related to the users’ system configuration and the packages installed on their machines.

Before you read anything further, it’s important to note that users will have the option to opt-out of this data collection. The company plans to add a checkbox to the installer, which would be checked by default. The option could be like: “Send diagnostics information to help improve Ubuntu.”

As per your convenience, you can opt-out during the installation. An option to do the same will also be made available in the Privacy panel of GNOME Settings.

With this data collection, the team wishes to improve the daily experiences of the Ubuntu users. It’s worth noting that the collected data will be sent over encrypted connections and no IP addresses will be tracked. To be precise, the collected data will include:

Flavour and Version of Ubuntu

Network connectivity or not

CPU family

RAM

Disk(s) size

Screen(s) resolution

GPU vendor and model

OEM Manufacturer

Location (based on the location selection made during install)

No IP information

Time taken for Installation

Auto-login enabled or not

Disk layout selected

Third party software selected or not

Download updates during install or not

LivePatch enabled or not

The collected data will also be made public to allow other members of the community to see what % of users are using which version, flavor, etc.

What are your views on this possible change in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS? Share your views with us and become a part of the discussion. Don’t forget to share your feedback with the Canonical team as well.