Ethereum (ETH)-focused blockchain company ConsenSys collects sensitive personal data from people using the Ethereum wallet MetaMask through Infura. In this way, ConsenSys at least processes IP addresses and wallet information of users of the service.
How is this possible?
The explanation for this is fairly simple. ConsenSys owns both MetaMask and Infura. It is important to realize that these are both centralized services, which in some cases therefore store sensitive personal data of users.
Infura is a service that runs Ethereum nodes on behalf of wallets and individuals. If someone enters a transaction via a MetaMask wallet, it goes through Infura, which then sends the transaction to the network.
Metamask connects to Infura via a remote call procedure service (RPC). If you use Infura as your default RPC provider in MetaMask, Infura will at least store your IP address and Ethereum wallet address when you send a transaction. privacy policy from ConsenSys.
If users connect to alternative RPC providers such as Ankr, Alchemy and others, the company does not collect this personal data. That does not alter the fact that these parties may have a similar policy to ConsenSys.
Bad for privacy
The idea of ​​decentralized cryptocurrency such as bitcoin and ethereum is that you can also work with a relatively high degree of privacy. If companies from the industry are now storing on-chain data as well as people’s wallets and IP addresses, that is a bad development in this area.
On the other hand, it is up to the people themselves to choose a certain way of working. You can also choose to run your own Ethereum node and not be dependent on a party like ConsenSys. Then you have everything completely in your hands.
I think we can get this fixed soon. We are not using IP addresses even if they are being temporarily stored, which they don’t need to be, as we’re not using them for anything.
— Dan Finlay 🦊💙 (@danfinlay) November 24, 2022
Incidentally, there also seems to be a solution to this problem soon. MetaMask founder Dan Finlay says via Twitter that MetaMask does not use IP addresses, so in theory this problem should be solved quickly.