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Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

businessinsider.com

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Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#71

Post by physicles »

kccqzy wrote: post #57
Larrikin wrote: post #42

Is there a self hosted solution to aggregating and viewing this data? I'm slowly moving away from Google and other companies clouds where I can. Would be nice to take this data out in takeout and explore it locally, but it's such a useful feature for looking back on my travels.

I use Arc, a paid app to track my location that stores this data on my device and only on my device. It has a good but not great UI to explore this on device, make corrections on transport types which are by default inferred by machine learning, mark and manage points of interest. The UI is somewhat complex so it's not the easiest to use, but it's easy enough after a while. Since you explicitly mentioned moving away…

Thanks, I’ve been looking for something like this since forever. OwnTracks is the thing I previously heard about, but at the time it required you to set up your own mqtt server for data ingestion. I’d rather not have to maintain something like that.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#72

Post by asielen »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Have never found myself in and cannot imagine a circumstance where I'd need to know my precise location at a point in time years ago, or really even at any time other than the present.

I love location data. In fact when I travel, I bring a GPS logger to track all my locations, it helps me sync up my ok photos and retrace my steps. I have pretty precise maps of ally big trips in the last 10 years.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#73

Post by cobertos »

arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Hopefully it can still be downloaded from the device? Then you could just upload the export to a tool and view it, like people do with GDPR exports of other services.

I've already looked into OpenTracks and Locus. Trying to find another app I trust to do this anyway...

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#74

Post by cobertos »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Have never found myself in and cannot imagine a circumstance where I'd need to know my precise location at a point in time years ago, or really even at any time other than the present.

I've used it for estimating driving miles for taxes (cause I suck at tracking it during the ride)

I've also used it for remembering what I was doing on specific days. It's wild how the location movements can accurately prompt my brain for the activities on those days

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#75

Post by cobertos »

asielen wrote: post #72
SoftTalker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have never found myself in and cannot imagine a circumstance where I'd need to know my precise location at a point in time years ago, or really even at any time other than the present.

I love location data. In fact when I travel, I bring a GPS logger to track all my locations, it helps me sync up my ok photos and retrace my steps. I have pretty precise maps of ally big trips in the last 10 years.

A GPS logger? What does that do over just your phone? I've been wanting an app to log my location outside of Google but was having trouble picking one to trust

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#76

Post by cobertos »

jmbwell wrote: post #16

Traccar is relatively easy to set up, for those who might be interested in ditching Google for location history altogether.

Any conflicts with battery optimization?

Google's location scraping felt more bulletproof because they seemed to prioritize it at the OS-level on Android over how normal apps function

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#77

Post by andrepd »

ajross wrote: post #53
762236 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't anyone that dislikes you file a lawsuit and subpoena the data too?

Discovery is subject to oversight. The court signs off on the subpoena and your lawyer gets to argue why it's not valid before it does. No, "because I dislike you" isn't going to fly. But if you're in a legitimate feud with someone and they can make a real case that your location information is important evidence for the court to see, sure.

Back in cold hard reality, there is PRISM and the Patriot Act and rampant unpunished data misuse by private companies and...

None of the "constitutional protections" matter if they don't apply to broad classes of situations.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#78

Post by nl »

modeless wrote: post #36
summerlight wrote: post #31

I don't like this change. What's going to be their proposal on multi device data sync, especially including web browsers? During my trip, I just let my phone log the path. Then I edit/browse it on my desktop since it's very inefficient to do so on my phone. With this change, this flow becomes almost infeasible or at least very tedious.

I agree, but I think the headline is misleading. The data can still be backed up in the cloud. However, it will be end-to-end encrypted. It seems to me like the real issue is the inability of web apps to process end-to-end encrypted data. Are there any web standards efforts to solve this?

> the real issue is the inability of web apps to process end-to-end encrypted data

We do this at verida.io

Yes, the key management is the issue.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#79

Post by tjbiddle »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Have never found myself in and cannot imagine a circumstance where I'd need to know my precise location at a point in time years ago, or really even at any time other than the present.

Could come up with a thousand reasons, but if you want a quick "Fun" reason and a quick "Utilitarian" reason:

Fun: I travel a ton, I love looking at where I went to relive the experience. Especially if it was a recent travel and I'm showing things off to friends asking about it. I just open up the Timeline and say "Okay, well this day we flew in - then we took a 4 hour car ride, then we hung in this town for a few days, then took a boat to this island for some camping, then flew over to this city for a week, and..."

Utilitarian: As a US Citizen living abroad, I apply for the FEIE tax exemption every year to help me keep my first ~$120k as untaxed from the Feds (Should be my entire income, but no - US needs to tax on citizenship and not residency like nearly everyone else.. but I digress). For this rule, I need to have full 24-hour days in foreign territory, so for my documentation to ensure I'm still within my limit, I like pulling up Timeline - snapping a screenshot/export and saving it for later should I ever be audited.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#80

Post by morsch »

xjay wrote: post #62
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #24

[flagged]

See also data sent to supl.google.com (Android default). > SUPL is used as part of the A-GPS (Assisted GPS) system to get a faster Time to First Fix. The problem is that Android's implementation automatically sends the IMSI (ID of the SIM card) to the SUPL provider for no apparent reason. And because Google is the default provider it's a big breach of privacy. [1] [1] https://github.com/Magisk-Modules-Alt-Repo/supl-r…

Wow, that's outrageous.
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