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.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
It's kinda a pain to use 'cause so many apps rely on Google services, so those need to be replaced with alternatives, but e/OS is installable and is supported by Fairphone
https://community.e.foundation/t/install-e-os-v2-on-fairphone-5-my-little-guide/58260
Email their data protection officer and the government. They may get fined hundreds of millions of dollars for this
You must be new around here lol
Exactly. Luigi #2 is the only way to even temporarily stop this.
google photos goes omnom
install e/os:
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5
or:
CalyxOS releases are paused, but when they are back: https://calyxos.org/
e/os is most likely my next step, especially with Google disabling installing "unverified" third-party apps in 2026.
Bought a FP5 with e/os in mind as a possible upgrade path, I just was too worried to immediately do the full jump.
Yes, I've installed e/os on my fairphone 5 and it just works. I even got my banking apps to work.
Hmm... I wonder... does GrapheneOS work on the Fairphone?
They don't and in their typical style they've written a very verbose post or two on why
Huh, link to their explanation?
I don't but its been posted a couple of times on Mastodon, I assume its on their blog and in their forms too.
The jist is Fairphone doesn't have the security HW to run it
Have some dic pics that were uploaded that i sent to my gf when we started dating and i'm glad i didn't delete them because now they have to look at my junk every time they decide to go snooping around where they shouldn't.
Check out Aves Libre on F-Droid
I had to ditch Google Photos app because of my paranoia, about this exact same thing that happened to you.
I tried that, and I greatly prefer Fossify Gallery. It's ~~based on the old QuickPic source code.~~ functionality almost identical to the highly regarded QuickPic app.
If you were using Photos as a photo roll app you need to stay angry at yourself a while longer. That's on you when you should know you cannot trust the G. Don't grant an app permissions to photos and videos that could sync it to the cloud. And as another precaution, don't keep sensitive pictures in the DCIM folder. If I have to take pictures of sensitive documents like that I disable WiFi (sync set up on WiFi only), take the picture, move it to a folder that's never backed up elsewhere on my phone, and then turn WiFi back on.
You are not normal because you care about these things. The normal user doesn't care and that's who they are catering for. I'm not excusing their behavior (I don't like it either) and at the same time you need to be more on your toes.
I'm planning to move to Ente this year when my Google cloud subscription runs out. Not looking forward to the work it entails but to the [paints face blue] FREEDOM!
I feel for you.
training ai on your photo's without even asking. wankers
I have just copied my elderly friends 2000 photos from google photos to my desktop, then deleted all of them from her phone. Had to do it with my browser, they only allow you to delete 30 photos at a time on the phone. tossers.
Installed droid-ify, installed lawnchair, fossify gallery, fossify messages, fossify contacts. perfect.
imported her photos back on to her phone:
Intentionally painful but its done.
bring on ADB, I have deleted everything with a G in it.
first one: I wrote a simple little bash script for these:
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.chrome
okgoogle, xgoogle, Gmail, calender, Calendar Sync, videos, googlequicksearchbox, youtube, music, Google Contacts Sync, googleassistant, Google Digital Well Being App, Google Duo, Google Pay, google photos and Google Drive with adb so its doesnt happen again.
This poor women is 84, WTF does she know about modern tech, google are tossers
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I would get rid of fairphone rom and install another rom:
unlock your bootloader. easy guide from Fairphone.
then install lineage or E/os custom rom
Faschist company with a faschist government. Stop asking for legal, take control, go Open Source.
Sorry for your shitty situation.
Try this. No root needed. I'm pretty much google free on FP5 (and others).
https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater
Removes most google apps and services.
Also try not to ever sign into google on your phone directly. Use Aurora Store, DAVX, Thunderbird etc.
I got sick of GP when they announced AI learning on user photos (or actually that's just the last straw). I use a combination of these two apps now:
that's why i straight up delete proprietary corporate apps now whenever possible, even if i don't use them.
they WILL do what they want unprompted, then make it difficult to undo.
I was gonna say something about postmarketOS, but it's not ready yet. Mobian is also not ready for it either.
So next best option if you really wanna get rid of this type of stuff is either rooting your device to remove what you don't need or flashing something like GrapheneOS or a different OS.
But I'd consider that a last resort if you already have everything set up just right and have things you don't wanna lose and can't backup easily. That, and if it's a work related device, you're screwed.
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.
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.
That all sounds like on-device behavior. You didn't say anything about it actually being uploaded.
Where's the article to this story?
There's no article - this is something that happened to me personally, today. I needed an outlet and wanted some advice what to do about this, and I'm really happy about the responses I've gotten.
Yes, but you're just screaming into an ephemeral void.
You could actually make google pay for this if you wrote an article about this on substack and then linked to it here.
Google has already paid over a billion dollars for GDPR violations. They do change their behavior as a result of such reporting and legal consequences.
Op should deff fight back but let's temper the expectations here... Realistically nothing will happen.
But yes it should be documented
I use Adguard and block Google photos from connecting to the internet.
Features like edit video still work, so I'm good. If editing didn't work, I'd disable it.
Additional tip: You can use the universal android debloater tool to remove built in apps on your phone.
Well, next time, make sure you have your settings set correctly - test with a few pictures at first...
I use pCloud, and it works great for my needs. I have deleted everything I had ever uploaded to Google, besides the simplest backup from my mobile phone, so I can easily restore it, if my phone breaks and I need a new one.