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Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

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Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#171

Post by eru »

dylan604 wrote: post #161
sixothree wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a popup on my iPhone one day "You were in City Park last weekend, would you like to share those photos?". I stopped allowing google access to my photos after that. A little late though, they had apparently scraped all of my data already.

I don't even have G-apps on my phone. They work fine in a browser, until they don't. I was trying to use streetview yesterday and it would not open in the browser and kept trying to redirect me to the app store. So now they are deliberately borking their webapps to punish those not using native apps.

Facebook has done that for a long time. And linkedin, too.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#172

Post by xigoi »

tart-lemonade wrote: post #105
butlike wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The path is different than the filename though. If I want to find duplicates, it will be impossible if the filename changes. In my use case /User/user/Images/20240110/happy_birthday.jpg and /User/user/Desktop/happy_birthday.jpg are the same image.

If your camera (or phone) uses the DCF standard [0], you will eventually end up with duplicates when you hit IMG_9999.JPG and it loops around to IMG_0001.JPG. Filename alone is an unreliable indicator. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_rule_for_Camera_File_sy...

Which systems still use this shortsighted convention? All photos I’ve taken with the default camera app in the last many years are named with a timestamp.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#173

Post by busymom0 »

Barbing wrote: post #159
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #125

This is a common approach to "privacy" taken by orgs like Google. You don't get to access or export your own data in order to protect your privacy, but Google still gets 100% access to it. Some messaging apps do the same and won't let you take a screenshot of your own conversations. Like, someone sent me an address, but I can't take a screenshot to "protect my privacy".

Imagine my surprise when I attempted to record the iPhone mirroring application, which was running on macOS. Apple did a great job on their DRM because I simply recorded a black screen while I was attempting to play back a video from an app on the phone. I'm sure it's given some businesses the confidence to invest in iOS app development, but it felt bad.

I think that's for apps like Netflix or other movie streaming apps being recorded for piracy?

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#174

Post by xp84 »

joosters wrote: post #110
lxgr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS allows this, but only on mobile data , which is pretty infuriating. Why should I not be able to also restrict apps from dialing home/anywhere just because I'm on a Wi-Fi network (which isn't even necessarily unmetered)?

It's really annoying. I have a sudoku game on my phone, works great but give it internet access and it's suddenly full of sketchy adverts. If I'm playing it on my commute, it's usable with mobile data disabled for the app. But when the train stops in a station long enough to auto-connect to wifi, immediate full screen adverts :(

I’m gonna be That Guy for a minute: if you enjoy using a Sudoku app, isn’t there one available on more acceptable terms, e.g. a single purchase or a IAP that removes the ads from this one? I’m not saying you have to pay like $3.99/week for a scam one, but more like pointing out that if you don’t like ads (as I also don’t) why not support the developers who believe in selling software to you for a few bucks rather than selling your annoyance to Google via Adsense?

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#175

Post by 1970-01-01 »

edent wrote: post #70
1970-01-01 wrote: post #25

>So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? .. Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable Bluetooth is not QuickShare, stop conflating them. Bluetooth works. I just tried it. It just sends the entire file to the destination, filename intact with all EXIF, no gimmicks, tricks, or extra toggles. As it has always done for 20+ years.

OP here. I'm not conflating them. That's why I used the word "or". I don't know how modern your Android phone is, but on all of mine sharing via Bluetooth strips away some of the EXIF.

On Android 16. Open photo. Hit share. Hit Bluetooth. Pick a device to send it to. Wait for xfer to finish. Observe in exifview. What detail is missing?

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#176

Post by Barbing »

madeofpalk wrote: post #140
morissette wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like such a shitty thing to victimize the potential victim. But… if you didn’t know that images you took had metadata… maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer. I mean. I’m going on decades of knowing this. Feel like there is a mid 90s X-Files episode that even like breaks this down. If not NCIS or some shit.

You're right - this is a shitty view on this. It's incredibly opaque that images secretly contain the GPS coordinates of where they were taken. There's no way that's obvious or intuitive. I think the 'ideal' thing to do would be an opt-in toggle for sharing "location and other extended info" for photos when selecting them, but I'm sure you can understand why a dev team took a shortcut to solve the immediate pain for…

When you upload the photo, at risk of great confusion they could essentially watermark the photo or add a banner showing the location and perhaps some of the other key details, like camera model, right on the photo so it would at least get across to the user that there is an association between these two things that needs to be disabled.

To dismiss the banner you'd have to click a dismiss button which would ask you to confirm that you want to get rid of the location data completely. Then there would be a tiny little button that says “hide this location inside the photo, where I can't see it easily, but everyone totally could”. (But less stupid.)

It would be terrible because there would be huge support threads on why it's trying to share an image with an overlay, but it would get it across. Would be a different failure mode for user privacy than what you would have with a text prompt or an interstitial or whatever.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#177

Post by kristopolous »

dylan604 wrote: post #167
kristopolous wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the location on every time, without exception. The current behavior is exactly what I wanted. These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death. It's maddening, We're constantly taking kitchen knives and replacing them with the colorful plastic toddler version and still have the same cutting tasks.

I was a fan of the idea that the OS would strip location data on any upload via web/app, but would preserve the data when doing specific types of transfers deemed not via third party like direct transfer to computer or AirDrop

Upload file doesn't mean mutate file.

No. Upload file means upload file. If you want to mutate the file, mutate the file.

When tools assume you're stupid and insert silent surprises unrelated to the task they no longer deserve the title "tool" because they are fundamentally doing other things.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#178

Post by gbear605 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #153
ClikeX wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that sweet local guide score.

I remember arriving in Lisbon, leaving a favorable review for a restaurant because they were so nice to us, and Google sending me a notification that I'm now a local guide for Lisbon. What exactly does that mean though? Is there any benefits to it? All I see is a badge/label, that's it?

There are some benefits that definitely used to exist, and maybe still exist, like early access to new features and additional Google Drive storage. But in practice today, the only real benefit is the badge.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#179

Post by 1970-01-01 »

ajifurai wrote: post #124
1970-01-01 wrote: post #25

>So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? .. Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable Bluetooth is not QuickShare, stop conflating them. Bluetooth works. I just tried it. It just sends the entire file to the destination, filename intact with all EXIF, no gimmicks, tricks, or extra toggles. As it has always done for 20+ years.

In my testing, when sharing from apps that use MediaStore like Google Photos or Fossify Gallery (using a `content://media/` URI), the GPS location was stripped even via Bluetooth. This seems to be the default behavior from Android 10 onwards. https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m... > Photographs > If your app uses scoped storage, the system hides location information by default When sharing vi…

You're doing it wrong then. I again verified on Android 16 using native Bluetooth sharing.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#180

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

kristopolous wrote: post #126
ieie3366 wrote: post #4

Most likely: actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers. I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize that they are effectively sending their live GPS coords to a random website when taking a photo. But yes, a prop to the input tag ’includeLocation’ which would then give the user some popup confirmation prompt would have been nice

I want the location on every time, without exception. The current behavior is exactly what I wanted. These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death. It's maddening, We're constantly taking kitchen knives and replacing them with the colorful plastic toddler version and still have the same cutting tasks.

And most people don’t want their location shared with random websites.
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