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No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

fourthamendment.com

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Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#21

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

gruez wrote: post #18
jmward01 wrote: post #9

Missing from this is the reality that the modern world increasingly requires using these applications. It is meaningless to present an option you are forced to agree to. Additionally there is, to me, a big difference between me enabling an app to use my data for the service I believe it provides and them using it for everything else.

>Missing from this is the reality that the modern world increasingly requires using these applications From the second paragraph in the linked article: >Location History is turned off by default, so a user must take several affirmative steps before Google begins tracking and storing his Location History data. [...] Roughly one-third of active Google users have enabled Location History. This is specifically about the…

Google used to (still does?) disable many features of Maps if location history was disabled. I kept it off, but could easily see many people felt forced to give up on their privacy for the convenience.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#22

Post by kerkeslager »

jhallenworld wrote: post #14

One consolation: it works both ways with this kind of data. For example, it can corroborate your story.

That data could corroborate one's story before it was considered to have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#23

Post by autoexec »

vineyardmike wrote: post #12
autoexec wrote: post #6

> Location History is turned off by default, so a user must take several affirmative steps before Google begins tracking and storing his Location History data. Do people really think Google isn't tracking location data without this setting enabled? How would anyone (save for a whistleblower) know? Location history seems like the data Google lets you collect/see for yourself, and not the totality of location data (whi…

> Do people really think Google isn't tracking location data without this setting enabled? How would anyone (save for a whistleblower) know? Frankly I think that Google wont track me if I flip the bit (bugs not withstanding). Maybe I’m a fool. Do I trust mega corps? No, but I trust them enough to not blatantly lie when there’d be huge legal repercussions. They’re a massive corporation with tons of lawyers. They have…

> They have an huge reputational risk

I don't understand this argument. The most hated corporations in the US are all insanely rich and are at zero risk of going out of business even though most people hate them. After a certain point, corporations have basically nothing to fear from bad press. Google specifically has been found guilty of violating the law and people's privacy on numerous occasions already, including misleading users into thinking they had turned off location tracking in their account settings even though Google was still collecting that information. Here's a short and very incomplete list:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/google-privacy...

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-sued-o...

https://www.androidcentral.com/google-faces-privacy-lawsuit-...

https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/google-settles-5-billion-consu...

https://apnews.com/article/google-chrome-privacy-lawsuit-set...

What reputation does Google have to protect at this point? They've repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to break the law when it's convenient for them and even after being caught they've generally profited from doing so and at no point were they in danger of going out of business due to punitive fines.

> Frankly the lack of whistleblowers or leaks should be a massive sign that it’s not happening.

whistleblowers are extremely rare. The few protections they have are being reduced all the time, and the risk is huge. Very few people will give up their career and risk becoming unhirable.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#24

Post by m463 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #17
jmward01 wrote: post #9

Missing from this is the reality that the modern world increasingly requires using these applications. It is meaningless to present an option you are forced to agree to. Additionally there is, to me, a big difference between me enabling an app to use my data for the service I believe it provides and them using it for everything else.

> enabling an app to use my data for the service I believe it provides and them using it for everything else. I completely agree, but I think we need to push society away from requiring for profit products into our life, or at least recognize that they have an association cost to the user. What is the reasonable expectation of a business to profit off a product that we’ve deemed “required”? Who would make or support…

> but I think we need to push society away from requiring for profit products into our life

The following sites use google services and google analytics:

irs.gov

ftb.ca.gov (california state tax authority)

dmv.ca.gov (california department of motor vehicles)

how can you avoid these things?

if money is involved, recaptcha is generally a non-blockable requirement.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#25

Post by gruez »

autoexec wrote: post #6

> Location History is turned off by default, so a user must take several affirmative steps before Google begins tracking and storing his Location History data. Do people really think Google isn't tracking location data without this setting enabled? How would anyone (save for a whistleblower) know? Location history seems like the data Google lets you collect/see for yourself, and not the totality of location data (whi…

>Do people really think Google isn't tracking location data without this setting enabled? How would anyone (save for a whistleblower) know? [...]

You can't, in the same way you wouldn't know whether Carl Sagan really has an invisible dragon in his garage or not. It's impossible to prove a negative.

>It doesn't matter if you delete the list of GPS coordinates from your google account because what you can't delete is the "This user is gay and often goes to gay bars on Saturdays" flag that google put there the instant they got that data.

Is there any evidence this actually happens? The bike thief example you linked is more straightforwardly explained with police using a geofence warrant, rather than some ML system that recorded "this guy bikes at 4pm to 6pm".

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#26

Post by taneq »

jhallenworld wrote: post #14

One consolation: it works both ways with this kind of data. For example, it can corroborate your story.

Is there any obligation to announce exonerating data found by prosecutors during a dragnet search? I was under the impression that they could just pick something that makes you look bad and build a case on that, and that unless your defence has access to all the same data (do they?) and is equally motivated and funded, that in this case you’re probably just boned.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#27

Post by gruez »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #21
gruez wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Missing from this is the reality that the modern world increasingly requires using these applications From the second paragraph in the linked article: >Location History is turned off by default, so a user must take several affirmative steps before Google begins tracking and storing his Location History data. [...] Roughly one-third of active Google users have enabled Location History. This is specifically about the…

Google used to (still does?) disable many features of Maps if location history was disabled. I kept it off, but could easily see many people felt forced to give up on their privacy for the convenience.

Source? I remember them disabling search history if you didn't sign in, but not any other critical features. Moreover as I mentioned in my previous comment, only a third has this feature enabled, so whatever feature google is withholding must not be that important to most people.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#28

Post by autoexec »

skybrian wrote: post #19
autoexec wrote: post #6

> Location History is turned off by default, so a user must take several affirmative steps before Google begins tracking and storing his Location History data. Do people really think Google isn't tracking location data without this setting enabled? How would anyone (save for a whistleblower) know? Location history seems like the data Google lets you collect/see for yourself, and not the totality of location data (whi…

That link is a story from 2020 about a geofence warrant. It appears that around the end of last year, Google changed their system to store location on the device (with optional encrypted backups), so warrants like that won't work anymore. More info: Is This the End of Geofence Warrants? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/end-geofence-warrants It might not be completely over. There might be other other location sto…

If that chance actually goes on to protect people, I'll agree that it's a good thing! We'll know when time goes on and nobody else ends up being arrested because the police when fishing using location data I guess.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#29

Post by steelframe »

I run GrapheneOS on my phone and have all location permissions denied for everything except for (offline) Organic Maps. I also make it a habit of keeping airplane mode enabled except on the (very) rare occasion when I need to make an outbound phone call while out of the house. With the recent revelations about the triangulated location data that AT&T left exposed for all of its customers I don't feel like this is an overreaction.

Re: No reasonable expectation of privacy in one's Google location data

#30

Post by judge2020 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Google is pushing location data to devices and purging it on servers. From a citation within my comment I’ve cited below: > This change means that Google will no longer respond to geofence warrants from law enforcement that request information on all devices near a particular incident. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40869536 (edit to fix my mistake, thank you Centigonal!)

The actual accuracy is worse than before but it’s a welcome change.

They do still offer a way to keep an encrypted backup of the database on Google servers (so you don’t lose it if you lose your phone) but its disabled by default and it doesn’t even have a modal popup making it easy to enable backups, you have to specifically click the UI button to see the modal with the info sheet and a button to enable backing it up.

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