Helsinki, Mar 22 (IANS): Finland's data protection watchdog is investigating Nokia phones' owner HMD Global after reports claimed that its devices mysteriously sent data to Chinese servers.

"The probe follows a report by Norway's public broadcaster NRK in which it claimed to have proof that Nokia phones are transmitting sensitive information to China based on a tip from a Nokia owner.

"The man in question, Henrik Austad, said he'd been monitoring the traffic from his Nokia 7 only to find it was sending unencrypted information to a Chinese server while switched on. The sensitive data included his location, as well as the SIM card number and the phone's serial number," the Engadget reported late on Thursday.

The phone was sending unencrypted, readable data that easily identifies the phone (IMEI and MAC), its SIM and network connections.

Notably, whenever data is secretly being sent to a server in China, it leads to conspiracy theories. Even more so, when the domain for that server, in this a certain vnet.cn, is owned by China Telecom, one of the state-controlled network operators in the country.

However, with neither China Telecom nor HMD Global able to tell who actually owns the server and receives the data, the plot thickens even further, according to the SlashGear.