I’ll believe it when I see it.
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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It will go to a 3rd party like meta first and then not be stored at google. That way google can’t turn that info over to the police
And I’ll believe it when I see executives be punished personally for lying. If they are lying. Which hopefully they aren’t.
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Just like that? No catch?
I guess the catch is the fact that they don't really need it. They have real time location from any Android device anyways (because of that feature that sends the lists of wifi networks around you from time to time), no need to storage the timeline on their servers, it's only duplicate data. lol
It was kinda cool for some things.
Like seeing where I went on October 14, 2018.
Or how many times I visited the "Steve's Spaghetti Store".
I use it to make documentation easier for work. I have to log visit times, travel time and mileage for each patient I visit. So much easier to pull up the info of my phone after work than to remember to track miles and log time getting in and out of my car.
As much as I'm careful about Google keeping my data, I have to recognize that this has helped a friend tremendously. He was separated from his ex, she had left with their daughter, and he was trying to get split custody. She testified he was a deadbeat dad, and she put it in writing that he had never been to pick up their daughter at school, never taken her to her regular weekend club activities, etc.
He reached out to me asking if his location history could help prove she was full of shit. It took me an hour or so to figure out the right way to process the data, but then I was able to give him a detailed list of dates and times he had been to his daughter's school, poney club, etc. His lawyer attached that to their rebuttal. I like to think it made a significant difference. He did get joint custody in the end.
I like to see how many miles I drove for work everyi month. I drove 2400 miles so far in December
Or creepy, because others see your timeline too.
Turn that off with (on pixel / aosp) Settings, Location, Location services, turn both to off.
Seems unlikely, GPS data is far more accurate and lots of security minded m people turn off WiFi when away from home but still need gps when out and about
Also Bluetooth scanning. Google trys to dark pattern you in to re-enabling them both, but maps will eventually use GPS if you cancel and try again.
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State to state, no papers?
I think I will live in… Montana.
I actually use timeline. Does this mean it will no longer work on a browser?
From your desktop browser? Probably. You'll still be able to use timeline from your phone though since the data is still being stored locally
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I'm not buying it.
That means that you're the product
What have google ever done to not trust them?
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Maybe they don’t store it anymore, they just send it straight to the feds
With the prism project ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM ) along with things like 641A ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ), G doesn't need to send anything. The nsa is already swallowing it whole.
Constitutional rights? You don’t need those
Rights? You don't need those
When big tech says they no longer need something, it means they have something even better. When they say they give you options, they mean dark patterns. Anytime you click 'Decline' it might as well be 'Accept all'. Rapist mentality of big corpos.
Personally, I use GPSLogger from FDroid on a 15 minute ping interval and then load the files into Location Map Viewer (also FDroid) for my own location tracking. Disabled Google awhile ago.
I back the files up to a home NAS.
Have you heard of OwnTracks? It's a self hosted google timeline alternative.
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Just curious, why do you feel the need to track your own movements?
If you have ever lost something and had to retrace your steps it helps but I guess it's not super important or relatable for most people
Ah, makes sense, that's a use case I hadn't thought of.
I've used my location history to remember names of places I went to over a year ago, addresses I was given and expected to write down but forgot, confirm for myself I actually went and did something that I couldn't recall fully...
It's great for someone with a shite memory.
It's nice to have a sort of diary sometimes. My only practical application has been to sometimes check which times I arrive to and leave from work when I need to report my hours.
Looks like most of the existing replies captured my same use cases!
There have also been a couple of times where my wife and I disagreed about what we did on X day and it's kind of nice to see who is right 😂
I think I also just like the raw data. I also keep spreadsheets of my utility bills over time, for example, because it's weirdly fun to look back and see or compare.
One thing I'd really love is a self-hosted all-day heart rate tracker, but have yet to stumble on such a thing.
With that measure in place, what likelihood do you think Google still knows your location?
4G masts can triangulate your location quite well based on signal strength and which post you're currently connected to so unless people are planning on removing their sim the government will always have decently accurate localization.
I would imagine without the sim, they could still get the location considering emergency calling would work.
Probably would use the IMEI at that point.
100%
That's actually a good idea, I might try it
Rare W for google if true. Will lool for sources.
Will the old data be removed from the Google servers?
Curious on the implementation. For example apps like signal and WhatsApp require you to either move or lose your data when you get a new phone. This will have to be the way Google implements or they are storing it somewhere on their servers.
The aren’t storing it actively in something you can search at all times, but it’ll be in the “backups” and “restore” pieces still
I enjoyed having history in maps on all my devices.
Too bad they didn't just encrypt it.
It’s not that simple. The user has to hold the key. And with cloud you want it to all be accessible from all of a users devices. And with a public service you can’t count on the user to be savvy enough to use their certificates.
Of course the fix to that is that the key is stored in the account.
But then Google has the key and can decrypt it.
So then the key itself has to be encrypted. And with what? The users weak ass-password?
All encryption has to begin with something that’s known, and the weaker that initial secret, the weaker the entire system below it.
Rare good guy Google?
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