Samsung wants your IMEI

In today's digital world, data collection is big money and data is collected via whatever means available to the interested parties, not excluding governments.

A company that is a well known consumer electronics giant today is Samsung.

The South Korean giant is a manufacturer of mobile devices, TV audio and video equipment, home appliances and I.T. equipment like PC's peripherals and printers. A far cry from its inception as a trading company diversifying in food processing, textiles, insurance, securities and retail.

When one purchases a product from Samsung a product warranty form is attached to the product where the user must fill in the form in order to obtain the warranty for the product, which does not sound alarming at all.

What is concerning though is that one of the fields required by Samsung is your GSM IMEI number, even though the IMEI number has 15 digits and the field has 12.

Your IMEI number should NOT be disclosed to anyone other than your telecommunications service provider which they already have once you have connected your mobile phone to their network.

Your IMEI number can be cloned or used to gain access to your mobile device (independently of your mobile phone number) with or without you knowledge including recording via the microphone.

Does Samsung really need your IMEI number?

If so for what purpose?