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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

#31

Post by jhallenworld »

taneq wrote: post #26
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.

You have access to your own location data, at least if you have location history enabled. It's an interesting question if defense can request this data from google if you don't have it enabled..

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

#32

Post by kibwen »

steelframe wrote: post #29

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…

It's not an overreaction. The idea of everyone willingly sharing the details of their every movement with sociopathic corporations who are beholden to national security letters would have been met with ridicule 30 years ago.

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

#33

Post by [deleted] »

steelframe wrote: post #29

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…

[deleted]

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

#34

Post by hollerith »

taneq wrote: post #26
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.

There is such an obligation.

In fact, just yesterday, a judge dismissed a case in the middle of a trial to punish a prosecutor for not disclosing information to the defense -- and the information had only a tenuous relevance to the case:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/12/a-bo...

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

#35

Post by gruez »

autoexec wrote: post #23
vineyardmike wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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.

Except you don't need to whistleblow by testifying in front of congress or whatever. You can anonymously post on HN (or similar tech-oriented forums) with proof and it would be enough to get the ball rolling. Android and google play services is archived everywhere it'll be easy for others to check your work.

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

#36

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #25
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 t…

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

gruez wrote: post #27
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Search history is a pretty nice feature to lose unless you volunteer to share your information. I had multiple addresses I had to store elsewhere because Maps would purposely forget them.

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

#38

Post by _heimdall »

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

We don't have to accept this though, everyone in the modern world makes a choice to accept the implied requirements of being part of the system. We accept the assumption that we are all online, that we all have a mobile phone, and that we all keep up with news and pop culture to an extent that we all seem to zero in on the same transient topic like a solar eclipse or an interest in atching movies about both Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Anyone can choose to avoid any one of these parts of the modern world. We're parts of that world, we aren't victims of it.

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

#40

Post by photonthug »

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…

> 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 a product they can’t profit on?

We kind of urgently need new models for certain things that start as for-profit and then fade towards more publicly owned utilities. This is the essence of the idea behind things like patents and copyright, and when we're talking about a service where the creators have been wildly successful the basic issues are mostly the same. Fair compensation, but not ownership in perpetuity. The thing about maps and similar is, it's not an idea to be protected because the idea is the easy part but the data is hard. Since google did some part of the actual mapping, they certainly deserve credit, but of course the whole thing could not exist if GPS wasn't essentially available as a public utility. Maybe if they want to be stingy with the map data forever, they should pay license fees for the GPS technology, since that's a piece of infrastructure they outsource to the public? Or for our individual data, since it's required to build their models?

Regardless of your stance on political/economic ideology, surely individuals can agree that it's not sustainable for society to be beholden to for-profit corporations forever for things like maps, the ability to use a flashlight or a toaster, the ability to open doors on houses or cars you own, or access to water/air. Maintenance is a real issue for most technology even after it's figured out, so probably the corporations should be forced towards spinning off actually separated co-ops/nonprofits/utilities in the fullness of time.

So basically wild profits and all the awful antisocial and anti-competitive behaviour you can get away with, but having some explicit expiration date for service-monopoly as well as idea-monopoly. And as for the question of motivation.. does it really disincentivize creative crooks to know that the next generation of crooks will need a new scam? I think not because the whole point is that this type of person is out for themselves.

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