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MRW I stumbbled onto the fact that Gboard has a opt-out keylogger. Edit: Title change made my wording look like a drunk redditor stumbled over to HN. The origi

MRW I stumbbled onto the fact that Gboard has a opt-out keylogger. Edit: Title change made my wording look like a drunk redditor stumbled over to HN. The original title was "Google Accused of Showing 'Total Contempt' for Android Users' Privacy". I too accused Google of 'Total Contempt'.

realusername 9y ago
It's not even the creepiest one for me, the creepiest one is receiving a notification while you are at the restaurant from Google Maps saying something like "We know you are there, please send us pictures of that place"
- bittercynic 9y ago
  Nice how they use a notification to ask you to do work for them for free.
berberous 9y ago
>> MRW I stumbbled onto the fact that Gboard has a opt-out keylogger. Explain? Edit: I think the parent poster is incorrect insofar as it may be read to imply that keystrokes are sent to Google. While on iOS you can indeed give Gboard (or any keyboard) "Full Access", Google's privacy policy for iOS GBoard is below (Android's is similar). It seems reasonable to me, and only logs your keystrokes _on your device_. What Gboard sends to Google: - Gboard sends your searches to Google's web servers to give you search results. - Gboard also sends usage statistics to Google to let us know which features are used most often and to help us understand problems if the app crashes. What Gboard doesn't send to Google: - Other than your searches, Gboard doesn't send anything you type to Google, whether it's a password or chat with a friend. Gboard will remember words you type to help you with spelling or to predict searches you might be interested in, but this data is stored only on your device. This data can't be accessed by Google or by any apps other than Gboard. - If you’ve turned on contacts search in Gboard search settings, this allows Gboard to search the contacts on your device so you can easily share. None of these queries are sent to Google.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  It's probably training the language model powering word suggestions.
  - TotempaaltJ 9y ago
    Gboard updates the model on-device and sends the updates to Google, meaning no keystroke data needs to be sent to Google while still improving the model with real world usage: > "[Federated Learning] works like this: your device downloads the current model, improves it by learning from data on your phone, and then summarizes the changes as a small focused update," scientists Brendan McMahan and Daniel Ramage said. "Only this update to the model is sent to the cloud, using encrypted communication, where it is immediately averaged with other user updates to improve the shared model." https://www.infoworld.com/article/3188430/artificial-intelligence/android-gboard-smartens-up-with-federated-machine-learning.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3188430/artificial-intelli...
    - Eridrus 9y ago
      It probably still keeps a copy of your typing locally though.
      - UncleMeat 9y ago
        If that were true, so what?
pvg 9y ago
It's opt-in on iOS at least.

realusername 9y ago

It's not even the creepiest one for me, the creepiest one is receiving a notification while you are at the restaurant from Google Maps saying something like "We know you are there, please send us pictures of that place"

bittercynic 9y ago
Nice how they use a notification to ask you to do work for them for free.

berberous 9y ago

>> MRW I stumbbled onto the fact that Gboard has a opt-out keylogger. Explain? Edit: I think the parent poster is incorrect insofar as it may be read to imply that keystrokes are sent to Google. While on iOS you can indeed give Gboard (or any keyboard) "Full Access", Google's privacy policy for iOS GBoard is below (Android's is similar). It seems reasonable to me, and only logs your keystrokes _on your device_. What Gboard sends to Google: - Gboard sends your searches to Google's web servers to give you search results. - Gboard also sends usage statistics to Google to let us know which features are used most often and to help us understand problems if the app crashes. What Gboard doesn't send to Google: - Other than your searches, Gboard doesn't send anything you type to Google, whether it's a password or chat with a friend. Gboard will remember words you type to help you with spelling or to predict searches you might be interested in, but this data is stored only on your device. This data can't be accessed by Google or by any apps other than Gboard. - If you’ve turned on contacts search in Gboard search settings, this allows Gboard to search the contacts on your device so you can easily share. None of these queries are sent to Google.

Eridrus 9y ago
It's probably training the language model powering word suggestions.
- TotempaaltJ 9y ago
  Gboard updates the model on-device and sends the updates to Google, meaning no keystroke data needs to be sent to Google while still improving the model with real world usage: > "[Federated Learning] works like this: your device downloads the current model, improves it by learning from data on your phone, and then summarizes the changes as a small focused update," scientists Brendan McMahan and Daniel Ramage said. "Only this update to the model is sent to the cloud, using encrypted communication, where it is immediately averaged with other user updates to improve the shared model." https://www.infoworld.com/article/3188430/artificial-intelligence/android-gboard-smartens-up-with-federated-machine-learning.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3188430/artificial-intelli...
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    It probably still keeps a copy of your typing locally though.
    - UncleMeat 9y ago
      If that were true, so what?

pvg 9y ago

It's opt-in on iOS at least.