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Google – My Location History

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Re: Google – My Location History

#61
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does make a difference. If you disable it, the data doesn't get stored in the first place, so there's nothing to share.

Wasn't there news a few years back that Android Phones uploaded location history happening while "offline" when they finally connected to WiFi; that ended up blamed as "a bug"? OTOH law enforcement has a direct access to baseband modem anyway, so they can triangulate switched off phones with batteries inside, and if those phones have large enough capacitors, even with removed batteries. Having some competent aggregat…

Do you a citation for that? That government had access to the modem and being able to locate switched off phones?

Re: Google – My Location History

#63

It's another "I'm scared of google tracking this thing but can't give a reason why" episode. It's bad if law enforcement has your location data because...? Are you a criminal?

There have been places in recent history where your sexual preference could have been "criminal". Or your level of intelligence.

Re: Google – My Location History

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "target", do you mean that they're using the information I voluntarily give them to provide me with more accurate and useful ads? Because, I mean, that's not a terrible trade-off.

There's no trade-off. Everything that's provided here could be done trivially on your device. You tell Google your daily movements and get back nothing in return.

Perhaps I could trivially have my device store this data. But I couldn't trivially have an always-on web interface to the information with search, timeframes, maps, etc. Let's not act like Google isn't doing anything besides data collection here.

Re: Google – My Location History

#65

My location history showed me as being on the strip in Las Vegas for 40 minutes while I was at google's Next conference in SF this year, which i found to be interesting. As far as I can tell my phone must have registered an SSID that caused google to think i was in Vegas. My history no longer shows this, but i did save some screen caps. https://imgur.com/a/eNBP5t7

This happens sometimes with conferences. I was at one recently where it changed everyone's auto set time zone to Mountain time, because the conference set up came from Utah

Re: Google – My Location History

#67
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there news a few years back that Android Phones uploaded location history happening while "offline" when they finally connected to WiFi; that ended up blamed as "a bug"? OTOH law enforcement has a direct access to baseband modem anyway, so they can triangulate switched off phones with batteries inside, and if those phones have large enough capacitors, even with removed batteries. Having some competent aggregat…

Do you a citation for that? That government had access to the modem and being able to locate switched off phones?

IIRC there was some discussion about it on some Neo900-related forums, but it was a few years I'd looked over there. One of the reasons they had switches for both baseband modem and mic to be sure they aren't powered.

Re: Google – My Location History

#68

It's another "I'm scared of google tracking this thing but can't give a reason why" episode. It's bad if law enforcement has your location data because...? Are you a criminal?

> It's bad if law enforcement has your location data because...?

I'm on the lax and forgiving end of the privacy debate but even I find this statement breathtaking.

Would you be as cavalier about giving up other similar protections? i.e. unwarranted search, self-incrimination etc. They can all be attacked with similar "if you've done nothing wrong..." arguments.

Re: Google – My Location History

#69
post #68

It's another "I'm scared of google tracking this thing but can't give a reason why" episode. It's bad if law enforcement has your location data because...? Are you a criminal?

> It's bad if law enforcement has your location data because...? I'm on the lax and forgiving end of the privacy debate but even I find this statement breathtaking. Would you be as cavalier about giving up other similar protections? i.e. unwarranted search, self-incrimination etc. They can all be attacked with similar "if you've done nothing wrong..." arguments.

Tell me how someone going into your home and searching or self-incrimination is the same as law enforcement knowing where you are

Re: Google – My Location History

#70

It's another "I'm scared of google tracking this thing but can't give a reason why" episode. It's bad if law enforcement has your location data because...? Are you a criminal?

There have been places in recent history where your sexual preference could have been "criminal". Or your level of intelligence.

Again, deflecting the question at hand. Please give an example of when in your everyday life will it hurt you or anyone that law enforcement knows where you are
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