AP Exclusive: Google tracks your movements, like it or not

[Brink]

Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.

Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request.

For the most part, Google is upfront about asking permission to use your location information. An app like Google Maps will remind you to allow access to location if you use it for navigating. If you agree to let it record your location over time, Google Maps will display that history for you in a “timeline” that maps out your daily movements.

Storing your minute-by-minute travels carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects — such as a warrant that police in Raleigh, North Carolina, served on Google last year to find devices near a murder scene. So the company lets you “pause” a setting called Location History.

Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking. (It’s possible, although laborious, to delete it .)...

Read more: AP Exclusive: Google tracks your movements, like it or not

 

[Barman58]

Turning this on it's head,

I wonder if law enforcement would be open to use Google data if the stored information would put a suspect at some place other than a crime scene.

Maybe this information could be used by the suspect to prove innocence but of course just because someone's phone or device is at a place does not prove that they are there too.

Of course this also applies the other way around, so to prove a suspect is where their phone is they should have to provide proof that the suspect was there too by some other means.

 

[Paul Black]

Very true Barman58, this could open up an extremely big can of worms.
It would also depend on whether the phone was registered properly or was actually on the person at the time. I would have thought that most people with something to hide would have what they call a burner phone(s)!

 

[Iain]

What's of grave concern, is the fact that Google owns Android. I didn't know that until I read the article below. I've always been satisfied being Google-free until now.


Should I be concerned about using my Android device?


The Right to not be Tracked: a Spotlight on Google Maps and Android Location Tracking - RISE Lab

 

[file3456]

So turn off the GPS?

 

[Paul Black]

 

[lehnerus2000]

Don't Be Good

I thought that everyone who was concerned about privacy already knew this.

You never install/use anything created by Google, if you want to attempt to preserve your IP/privacy.

Google has been the world's most evil company ever since they first appeared.
Facebook is currently the only other company that is in the same league as Google.

MS is pushing W10, to try to catch up to Google's supremacy in the field of "pure corporate evil".
They have got a long way to go, mostly due to their own incompetence.
It's hard to spy on people, using their PCs, when the OS has auto-bricked them.

 

[file3456]

They have got a long way to go, mostly due to their own incompetence.
It's hard to spy on people, using their PCs, when the OS has auto-bricked them.

That's pretty good. And it pretty much is true I think. I had a very long running list of forum posts from several computer forums of people having issues with their computer's all due to updates. But now I can't find it.

Might be interested in these articles.


https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...oft-about-poor-windows-10-update-experiences/


A New Windows 10 Insider Preview File Teases Subscriptions | Digital Trends


Microsoft shows that it does not really care about user feedback - gHacks Tech News

 

[Paul Black]

Big Brother REALLY is watching you!

 

[Barman58]

Well it was always more likely than me watching Big Brother

 

[Paul Black]

Well it was always more likely than me watching Big Brother.

Very good Barman58, me too .