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The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

theguardian.com

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Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#3
I've always had the habit of keeping Location services turned off while not in use, to conserve my phone's battery. Guess it's a privacy requisite now.

I also remember having a habit of keeping mobile data off during the 3G days. Guess it's not feasible anymore.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#4
post #2

Reminder: Turn off location services/GPS systemwide to opt out of these databases. The subscriber location tracking performed by cell towers is much lower resolution.

I am skeptical of using only technical solutions to non-technical problems. It rarely scales, IMO.

Disclaimer: Work at Google, but opinions are my own.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#7
post #2

Reminder: Turn off location services/GPS systemwide to opt out of these databases. The subscriber location tracking performed by cell towers is much lower resolution.

google android tracks location even when gps off

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=google+android+tracks+location+eve...

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#9
post #5

Is there a self hosted app to track your location? I use Google maps to keep granular history so I can use it later for whatever. But if I could self host that’d be better.

There are standalone GPS loggers that lack transmitters and log location to SD cards in CSV / GPX formats (e.g., [0]). It's one more thing to carry, but it's small and you can be reasonably confident that it won't transmit your location to anyone. But the particular one I've posted doesn't have the ability to encrypt the data as its being saved, so if someone physically steals the device, they'll have easy access to your past location history.

[0] https://canadagps.ca/collections/gps-data-logger/products/co...

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#10
it will end up as a cat and mouse game

surely poeple who are up to no good, would just turn off their phone - possibly taking the battery out or placing it in a foiled bag.

or give it to another person or even hide it somewhere else

doesn't seem very hard to circumvent

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