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To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

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Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#91
And Google, now a defense contractor willing to work on weapons of war to make a (bigger) profit, will gladly assist them.

They're themselves creating the incentive to do that, just as when they got into the content and content licensing game, they ended up creating the most aggressive content censorship system on the (free) internet, beyond even what the laws require. It's no longer a matter of "choosing to do the right thing". The (bad) incentives are already in place. Now Google just reacts to the incentives it created.

We're also supposed to "just trust them" that their secret AI Ethical Board, which can be replaced at any moment, also in secret, will do the right thing when things will go bad with its AI. They've already created the incentive to cheat by keeping that board secret.

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#92
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live in Los Angeles (according to Google). How will GDPR help you? Companies such as Google and Facebook aren't going to implement European laws for their American customers!

Laws are ideas, and ideas spread. Hopefully it affects U.S. policy in the next decade or so. P.S. I'm curious how you found my city. LinkedIn?

@Petilon works at google maybe? (Joking of course!)

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit. So my paranoia about turning off Google location tracking was completely well-founded, and way more quickly than I would have hoped. GDPR can't come soon enough...

Law enforcement can triangulate location from a mobile phone signal via your celluar network provider with or without Google's help, and has been able to do so since the very beginning.

Bingo, knowing the location of each phone at all times is intrinsic to how the cellular network works.

The interesting question here is why law enforcement is going to Google instead of the cellular network providers directly? By definition, they're missing out on data from all non-Android phones.

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#94
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit. So my paranoia about turning off Google location tracking was completely well-founded, and way more quickly than I would have hoped. GDPR can't come soon enough...

Google tells you regularly that you have it enabled - you get emails with your full history. How would anyone not know it's recorded?

I’ve never once received, nor heard anyone else who’s received such an email. Are my family and friends the anomaly or are you?

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice you left out Amazon. In fact, there are a number of players to list, which is the reason the grandparent wrote 'etc..'

Apple is the biggest company in the world, by market cap. I would hardly call Apple a member of the 'etc..' list.

Mentioning Apple to bring up the point is different than calling out parent for leaving it off. It was petty.

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#96
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live in Los Angeles (according to Google). How will GDPR help you? Companies such as Google and Facebook aren't going to implement European laws for their American customers!

Laws are ideas, and ideas spread. Hopefully it affects U.S. policy in the next decade or so. P.S. I'm curious how you found my city. LinkedIn?

It’s pretty hard to imagine those laws coming to the US in our lifetimes with all the corporate interests that would oppose them.

It’s probably obvious but our best bet is in voting for Bernie Sanders.

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#97
post #26

This is an important story, but a little difficult to summarize. Here's my attempt at an overview: 1. Google stores location history data for more of its mobile users than you might expect. The precision is greatest when GPS is on, but less precise data from cell towers and WiFi sources is used almost any time a Google app is being used on an Android or non-Android phone. There have been cases in the past where Googl…

Holy shit. So my paranoia about turning off Google location tracking was completely well-founded, and way more quickly than I would have hoped. GDPR can't come soon enough...

I've taken to just not carrying a cell phone with me, or just keeping it off.

I don't really need it most of the time, and I find the sense of privacy liberating.

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#98
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google tells you regularly that you have it enabled - you get emails with your full history. How would anyone not know it's recorded?

I’ve never once received, nor heard anyone else who’s received such an email. Are my family and friends the anomaly or are you?

The email reminders I get look like:

Subject: You are using Google Location Sharing to share your real-time location.

Hi Jeff,

To protect your privacy, we would like to remind you that you are sharing your real-time location using Google Location Sharing with [wife] and [close friend and housemate].

If you didn't enable this or want to stop sharing your location at any time, please go to your Google Location Sharing settings.

Thanks,

Google Location Sharing Team

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#99
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be using Maps or an app that obviously uses location for Google to be collecting location related information. I have no idea when they do or don't but I'd bet people would be surprised if they found that the gmail app was relaying their location to Google. On the other hand few wouuld be surprised at all if you told them the maps app was sending their location.

If you have all location services turned on then your phone tracks your location constantly in real time. Go to My Timeline on Google Maps and it can show you a full map of everywhere you went on any particular day.

No, only if you allow to track you even when you’re not using it. Unless you are speaking about android and in that case it may well be like this, no idea honestly.

Re: To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

#100
post #26

This is an important story, but a little difficult to summarize. Here's my attempt at an overview: 1. Google stores location history data for more of its mobile users than you might expect. The precision is greatest when GPS is on, but less precise data from cell towers and WiFi sources is used almost any time a Google app is being used on an Android or non-Android phone. There have been cases in the past where Googl…

Holy shit. So my paranoia about turning off Google location tracking was completely well-founded, and way more quickly than I would have hoped. GDPR can't come soon enough...

https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

You're looking for "Location History".

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