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Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

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Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#41
post #25
post #24

If you care about personal privacy and security of your friends and family, you should discourage them from using Android.

Of course, this is meaningless without context. Privacy from who? Security from what? What's the perceived threat we're trying to protect against? Everything is a tradeoff. To absolutely protect your privacy, you must never be seen in public or interact with any other party in any way.

Android is bad for pretty much all threat models.

- Worried about Google? Android is bad. Google collects your data.

- Worried about the government? Since Google must obey warrants for your data, Android is bad.

- Worried about malicious third parties? Since Google has failed to patch even the Pixel line for KRACK until the December update... yeah, Android is bad. And malware through the Play Store that hits large numbers of devices is quite common.

To be clear: I greatly dislike iPhones. But Apple controls their store with a quality approval methodology, they patch all of the devices on their platform promptly going back a number of years, their business model is not built around data mining, and their privacy features have frustrated and irritated the government.

I dislike the iPhone, but if you want privacy and security, you should get an iPhone.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#42
post #24

If you care about personal privacy and security of your friends and family, you should discourage them from using Android.

What can Android or other mobile OS users do to protect their privacy? Is there a mobile OS that genuinely takes privacy seriously, yet is easy to install and use?

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#44

Why is this a problem? What is the harm of them collecting cell tower information? Is it possible to provide the same quality of service(s) without the cell tower information?

bob_theslob646, we have identified you as being the only person around while a murder was committed. We need you to come into the station.

They can do that with or without cell phones tracking you.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#45
post #24

If you care about personal privacy and security of your friends and family, you should discourage them from using Android.

If you care that much about your privacy and security you shouldn't use a cell phone at all. Your ISP's and network will be the biggest offender of collecting and selling your data.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#47
post #5

Question: If I want Android without google services, what options do I have? So far I know only cheap chinese phones and F-Droid app store.

You can buy a regular phone that has an active community on XDA forums and flash a ROM without installing google services afterwards.

If you can't do that, some phones just let you disable google services. On others you can try getting root access and then disabling them.

As an alternative (or addition for closed-source apps) to F-Droid I can recommend APKUpdater. It is highly configurable, has multiple apk sources, has search and can install apps from Google Play Store.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#48
It’s funny how when asked about it, google instantly stated that it was being removed and all location data was purged. It’s almost as if they saw how bad it looks and how it hurts android’s reputation, but hoped no one would notice/care.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#49

When I'm at work, I use my work computer, which has a long lived static IP, to log into my personal Google account. I have configured all of my browsers to clear cookies and storage upon closing. I never use signed-in Google Maps, but I sometimes use it from that computer, from fresh browser while logged out. A week ago, I moved from my previous home that was close to my work, to a different city about 20 miles away.…

Google can use user prediction to guess which account you are with your browser, ip, ism, mac address, and other persistant metadata. Its how their whole 'you signed in from a new location' security scheme works.
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