The Silent Data Collection
When you install Ubuntu, Canonical (the company behind the operating system) asks if you would like to participate in the “Popularity Contest” (often abbreviated as popcon) and send system usage metrics back to their servers. This telemetry data includes information about your hardware configuration, which software packages you install, and how frequently you use specific applications. While this data is anonymised and used to help developers prioritize which software packages receive updates, many privacy-conscious users and enterprise server administrators prefer their systems to remain completely silent on the network, transmitting zero telemetry data.
Purging the Popcon Package
If you accidentally opted into this data collection during installation, or if you simply want to ensure your system is completely locked down, the most secure method is to entirely remove the software package responsible for collecting and transmitting the metrics, rather than relying on a graphical toggle switch.
Open a terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T). You will use the Advanced Package Tool (APT) to completely purge the telemetry software from your hard drive. Type the following command: sudo apt purge popularity-contest ubuntu-report and press Enter. You will be prompted to enter your administrator password. The system will calculate the dependencies and ask for confirmation to remove the packages; press Y and Enter. By purging these two specific packages, you guarantee that the background daemons responsible for phoning home to Canonical are permanently destroyed and cannot be accidentally re-enabled by a future software update.