The actual accuracy is worse than before but it’s a welcome change.
They do still offer a way to keep an encrypted backup of the database on Google servers (so you don’t lose it if you lose your phone) but its disabled by default and it doesn’t even have a modal popup making it easy to enable backups, you have to specifically click the UI button to see the modal with the info sheet and a button to enable backing it up.
Thank you for posting this. I had no idea that there was a default off option to keep encrypted backups. I would be pretty mad if I lost all my years of timeline data because I switched phones. It's ridiculous that Google didn't even show an option for this in the long and needlessly convoluted migration process.
Google's handling of this "change" was disastrous. I also value my timeline data and would hate to lose it.
Google's solution was to force me to acknowledge some weird dialog that had minimal information about the impact. This is beyond asinine and I don't know how they can say they gave me any informed consent on the change - the whole thing is bizarre.
I took a screenshot, and left it running for a few hours while I stewed over it luckily. Then went and confirmed the "backup" of my timeline afterwards just to be sure. But who knows if this "feature" even works as before, even though it has my backups.
Side note. The solution to this is not to move my data to "the device" and off their servers. The solution should have been for them to open-source the service that handles this data, and make it a configurable first-class option in their location app.
it is outrageous invasion of privacy to keep constant tracking records of all locations over long periods of time, yet a user is outraged when they "lose" access to it?! Does a faith in personal access to data stores override any and all opaque backend practices of a massive company? like a cargo cult -- the company will return all of our precious data and we will be made whole
Screenshot would show the users current location, and would not tell you anything that the directions didn't tell you. I followed the directions in that comment and confirm that I see what is described. A cloud icon in a top nav bar, on the right side, with a slash through it in my case as backup sync is off.
2. In iOS, turn off background permission to all Google apps. (You can do this for most apps without loss in functionality). Then, turn off location permission all apps. For maps, give it location permission to "allow while using" only.
This is the least intrusive you can get to. Beyond this, you can also use different google account for different google apps to minimize data mingling. Further beyond that, you can just stop using google apps.
Dragnet searches are controversial in many societies, not just the US.
There’s a balance between individuals rights to privacy and what makes law enforcement easier.
One argument against broad surveillance measures like this one is that surveillance infrastructure is easy to implement and hard to get rid of again. You might be fine with the laws that are enforced with it today, but you might not be with what it’s used for in the future.
Because law enforcement must be costly and non-automated to avoid the unbalanced power distribution between an individual and the gov, which only serves the individual and not rules them.
A cost to catch a criminal should be a manual and expensive work from an agent and thus provide no ability to mass abuse human rights on scale. Only on actual criminals when needed.
> "A cost to catch a criminal should be a manual and expensive work from an agent and thus provide no ability to mass abuse human rights on scale. Only on actual criminals when needed."
The problem is that we're expending huge amounts of engineering power to avoid the issue when we could instead be using it to provide a privacy-first option that still safely enables law enforcement efforts to track down violent people whilst not enabling this hypothetical power-inbalance of government over individuals.
Let's be honest though, it's a hypothetical boogeyman. The real problem is that we all secretly know that we don't live in a rainbow world where we all agree on what is "right". We can't even agree on supposedly simple concepts like protecting children's bodily autonomy and safety, so who's to say we will ever be able to agree on any other political issue which arguably pales in comparison.
This is something often implied but rarely stated, so thanks for spelling it out.
But I don’t think it’s an inherent tradeoff? In theory, anyway, the police work for us. They’re spending taxpayer money. It’s expensive. If there’s a way of making them more efficient then we should want them to use it. Maybe there are ways?
This doesn’t mean skimping on necessary safeguards, but that doesn’t mean we need to put up unnecessary obstacles about knowing where to look. We should still want them to win at finding criminals and we don’t want “game balance” because it’s not a game.
Catching the bad guys and not prosecuting the wrong people both involve having more accurate information. Bad information means more mistakes.
It doesn’t mean just trusting them. Defense attorneys, judges, and juries benefit from better information, too.
There was a time, not that long ago, when there was no such thing as Google Location History storing the geographical movements of all Android users by default. Now, in your mind, go back to that time period, and lets say there are elections coming up in your country.
Are you there yet? OK. Now, the manifesto of the candidacies in the upcoming elections is proposing that the location history data of every citizen in your country should be stored in a database, just in case law enforcement needs to know the exact location of any individual at any time to be able to do their investigations. Suppose that their plan to implement it is technologically feasible and requires no additional effort from the citizens.
Would this make you more or less likely to vote for them?
I still don't understand this perspective, other than slippery slope povs ('what if the Nazis take over?').
My bank knows everywhere I go (if I spend money). The main mobile phone companies know everywhere I go (in real time, and who with [if they have a phone]). Shops and supermarkets track you around the building by Bluetooth, et cetera.
So, what's the problem if the police get access to this data to solve heinous crimes. I'm not talking the RIP Act (UK, regulatory investigation powers) - which lets a ridiculously broad swathe of people see, eg your internet history - but major crimes ... why not?
To answer your question, as long as the parties had a sound moral basis, supported individual rights, then it wouldn't alter my voting intention. I guess I'm happy to limit the liberty to commit serious crimes.
Statistically, you can't rely on having a non-repressive government for your entire lifetime. The US has been fortunate in missing out on it for quite a while, but even then there has been HUAC and J Edgar Hoover, even if they didn't take over the whole government.
Not just those, the goverment has been historically repressive of many minorities, using the police to do this, from blacks to native americans, labour advocates, activists, and other categories, that's not confined to the HUAC and Hoover era.
Isn't that just showing that repression is orthogonal to ability to track people? A database of movements easily clears many people who might be falsely accused and also highlights crimes of false accusation allowing removal of perversions of justice. Of course it needn't be used that way, if you put {or don't prevent} the immoral/criminal in power then they'll do immoral/criminal things whether they have access to citizens movements or not.
Elect trustworthy people first.
If you don't start there we're all screwed... but a large number seem to elect 'people who'd sell their grandma to make a nickel'.
>Isn't that just showing that repression is orthogonal to ability to track people?
No, it just shows that you can repress even with less ability to track people (a fact nobody doubted. The Romans could repress people too and they didn't have mass surveillance).
It, however, absolutely doesn't refute the point that with more ability to track people you can repress more, more effectively, and in novel ways.
>Elect trustworthy people first.
Popular pressure (and even ocassional popular revolt), separation of powers, and various established checks and balances are there precisely so you don't have to depend on electing trustworthy people.
Of course if we could somehow magically only be electing trustworthy people, we wouldn't need to have this discussion (or have these problems).
Oppression of minorities is really just the outcome of democracy on long enough time scales. Run a democracy long enough and you'll have the boot of 51% of the population on the other 49.
>Run a democracy long enough and you'll have the boot of 51% of the population on the other 49.
Why is there a 49% of people with widely different ideas about what's to be done and what's good than the rest 51% of them? What kind of fucked up society would that be?
Democracy pressuposses a shared base consensus about reality and what's good, and then arguing about the specifics and the approaches.
This is 'drunk-driving kills so we should ban vehicles' level thinking.
If you don't want fascists then vote/act against that. You can't avoid fascists by making it harder to catch criminals for non-fascists. Then you get "well at least the fascists keep crime rates down".
If the ruling party has the ability to suppress dissenting views and the means to target people doing something completely lawful like attending a political rally then how, exactly, does one "vote/act against that"?
Maybe it's easier to just not give them the power in the first place?
Is it your thought that government agencies are generally competent and respectful of your data? Do you think the kind of people who run bureaucracies with zero accountability are likely to keep your info private?
No. "The cyberattack and data breach were reported to be among the worst cyber-espionage incidents ever suffered by the U.S., due to the sensitivity and high profile of the targets and the long duration (eight to nine months) in which the hackers had access."[0]
8 to 9 months of undetected access. Not hours. Not minutes. Months.
This seems an entirely different argument - the whole point of using movement data is to increase accountability. Why, excepting being immoral, wouldn't those supporting it agree to higher levels of accountability?
They do still offer a way to keep an encrypted backup of the database on Google servers (so you don’t lose it if you lose your phone) but its disabled by default and it doesn’t even have a modal popup making it easy to enable backups, you have to specifically click the UI button to see the modal with the info sheet and a button to enable backing it up.