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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

#91

Post by sixothree »

eru wrote: post #15
embedding-shape wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'd wager 90% of the photos on Google Maps associated with various listings don't actually know their photos are in public. I keep coming across selfies and other photos that look very personal, but somehow someone uploaded to Google Maps, the photo is next to a store or somet…

Google prompts you in Google Maps if you want to upload your picture to Maps. I sometimes do that for random pictures, even like selfies, which I don't mind popping up there.

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.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#92

Post by Zak »

lukan wrote: post #78
sathackr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS still does this -- allows controlling internet access on a per-app basis.

For those of us stuck on normal android, is there a way to achieve that? I know it used to work with some firewall apps but nowdays they all require root access.

It looks like you can't revoke the internet permission, but you can use the firewall via ADB. Settings are lost on reboot, but you can use an automation with Tasker or similar to set them on boot:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/1mxjnvs/how_to_bloc...

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#94

Post by roywiggins »

morissette wrote: post #81
sixhobbits wrote: post #8

It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.

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.

Even people who know it, don't think about it and don't connect it with the potential consequences of uploading a picture to a website. And why would they? It's not visible, there's no warning, it's just not something that's going to be top of mind.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#95

Post by roywiggins »

master-lincoln wrote: post #59
sixhobbits wrote: post #8

It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.

Because most people have no idea how the tools they chose to buy and operate work, the few rational people who educate themselves have to suffer... This sounds like a downward spiral concerning freedom.

You don't have to be irrational to not know things.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#96

Post by amazingamazing »

lukan wrote: post #85
amazingamazing wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t understand the scenario you’re defending against. Google still knows where you actually live and work trivially. If you don’t trust Google you should just de-Google completely.

I also don't trust my government. So should I just degovernment completely? Sounds just as practical or realistic for most people.

You’re saying moving on from Google is similar to switching government?

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#97

Post by lxgr »

sixhobbits wrote: post #8

It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.

100% agreed; people generally don't realize how deanonymizing EXIF data can be.

I remember one of my cameras or phones including a "seconds since device startup" counter; together with the exact time the photo was taken, this yields a precise timestamp of when a phone was last restarted. This by itself can be highly deanonymizing out of a small to medium sized set of candidate phones/photographers.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#98

Post by setopt »

sixothree wrote: post #91
eru wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google prompts you in Google Maps if you want to upload your picture to Maps. I sometimes do that for random pictures, even like selfies, which I don't mind popping up there.

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 had a similar moment a few years ago. That Google Maps pop-up was what caused me to first switch to de-googled Android, and once that turned out to be a hassle after a couple of years, switch to an iPhone without Google stuff. (On Android, Google is a location provider, so blocking their access is much harder.)

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#99

Post by Zak »

I don't like this. The Right Thing is for camera apps to not add location metadata by default.

If you go in and turn location on (which should have a warning on it), then you're the sort of person who changes defaults, a more sophisticated user than the majority of the population who is able to take responsibility for the consequences. Yes, I can imagine a scenario where someone ends up with this setting turned on through no fault of their own, but it shouldn't be the role of an OS vendor to prevent every possible mistake.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#100

Post by lxgr »

sathackr wrote: post #69
edgineer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all-or-nothing; sometimes some people at Google push for some things to improve privacy. Rarely happens when revenue is at stake. Android used to ask you "do you want to alllow internet access?" as an app permission. Google removed that, as it would stop ads from showing up. Devastating change for privacy and security, great for revenue.

GrapheneOS still does this -- allows controlling internet access on a per-app basis.

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)?
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