Sunday, April 14, 2019

Do You Have an Android Phone? Do You Use Goggle Maps on an iPhone?

Then, thanks to a Google database called Sensorvault, you can wind up being ensnared in a police investigation because your phone was near where a crime was committed. In some states, your name may be released to the public for that reason alone.

Read more here.

Basically, you should ensure that "location history" is turned off. Then do this:


Then you should go through whatever device that you have and ensure that location services is shut off for any app that doesn't need it. For those that do, ensure that it's set to "while using".

Because it's not just the possibility of being caught up in a random investigation. We really don't know who else has access to your location history. Besides the government, there is this fact that has become all to clear: If corporations are people, as the Supremes have repeatedly held, then they are psychopaths. They do not care about anyone other than themselves. Google's founders once bruited about that their first principle was "do no evil". They never talk about that anymore.

If some company can persuade Google to sell location data to them, they will. If it's not being offered for sale, it soon will be. Maybe Allstate and others will judge your insurance rates by where you drive. Maybe your employer will want to know where you go on your off-time. Maybe you have a stalker or a political enemy.

but you can bet your last farthing that the information will be available, if you don't do something to choke it off.

2 comments:

  1. Lovely news, but I’ve had location services set as you suggest since it appeared. However, I doubt that will block everything, such is the connected life.

    On a related fun note, with location services turned on as suggested, Android phones may still transmit additional location data via Bluetooth, even when Bluetooth is “Off”. The so called “Bluetooth Beacon” system is to blame, and with Bluetooth on and any location services in use, you may be tracked via association with other Bluetooth units, which ARE actively tracked, because of their unique codes allowing Google to triangulate your position. This, off course, makes me wonder about what else Apple is doing too?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not to mention that none of this turns off the E911 system location services which broadcast your GPS coordinates to all the nearby cell towers on a regular basis. So even if you've disabled Google from receiving your location, the cops can still go to the cell phone companies and get it.

    ReplyDelete

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