Privacy

41480 readers

425 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

326

Google Photos app uploaded all my locally saved pictures completely against my will (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by RealM__@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

130 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've gotten a new phone and setting it up for the past few days - a Fairphone 5 with Android installed. So obviously, this means I can't escape Googles clutches. Sure, whatever.

I have been VERY adamant about pressing "No" on all prompts, that try to get me to try something out or use some dumb service. I do not want any AI tool or similar to go through my files.

Yet, while perousing the depths of my system settings, I realized Google Photos was using a suspicous amount of storage. Somehow, it had "synchronized" ALL my locally saved pictures - this included pictures of my vacations, my drivers license, private pictures I would have rather not shared, and so on...

And while checking the Google Photos App for the damage done, obviously it had already automatically generated "previews" and "albums" for me, neatly organized.

IT HAD AUTOMATICALLY ANALYSED MY DRIVERS LICENSE AND SAVED IT INTO AN ALBUM CALLED "Identity-related"

How the fuck is this legal? I am so mad at myself right now. I'm usually so fuckin cautious about denying any sort of pop-up and setting all settings as strictly as possible.

So obviously I just had to spent 2 hours figuring out how to turn this "synchronization" off, and how to delete all photos in google photos - spoiler alert: There is no "Delete All" button. You have to manually select every single fucking image.

Sorry for the rant, I hope it's not too off-topic. I'm just so mad right now.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Libb@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I own an Android phone, for a single app I need to have access to. It's a Redmi something. I could not find a way to just uninstall their own 'Gallery' app nor the Google Photos app so I removed their access to any file. I hope this is enough but I don't know that.

I thought Android was all about choice (against iOS, which is my default phone) but this was not very convincing. I may have missed a way to easily uninstall any app, though? I would like to replace them with f-droid alternative apps so there won't be any risk they access the little data I've stored on that phone.

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's a Redmi something.

If it is still using the default OS (HyperOS / MiUI), you can uninstall both the Xiaomi and Google Photos apps. The easiest method nowadays is to install Universal Android Debloater on to your computer (any OS), connect your phone to it, enable USB debugging on the phone, and remove the apps you don't want.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thx, I'll check that tool. Not an expert, so you know ;)

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It has a GUI, and clearly shows what apps can be safely removed versus whst apos are load-bearing.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

Update: I tested it, and it seems to be working as expected. Now, I just need to make sure what apps on the phone correspond to those listed since they don't display the same name and I would not want to remove anything I should not. Thx again ;)

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does it allow you to remove gapps?

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Yes of course.

Edit: Lot of third-party apps rely on Google Play Services, so removing this is not recommended.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 1 points 6 days ago

Removing it is definitely recommended. Those apps are recommend to avoid

[–] jinx@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

why not Canta?

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

Oh that's nice. No need for the computer then.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 1 points 1 week ago

Its not enough. Gapps has root access. You have to reinstall the OS. By default, new installs won't include gapps