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This should surprise no one. I believe this has been known for a while now. This is one of the many reasons I have location services and GPS disabled on my An

This should surprise no one. I believe this has been known for a while now. This is one of the many reasons I have location services and GPS disabled on my Android and have all that tracking/history disabled in my Google account. GPS is only ever enabled precisely when I need it and only at those times (for navigation only). I also disable my wifi as well for the same reason - Google is able to track your location based on that, and they absolutely do so. I've seen it documented elsewhere. Only if you really need wifi enabled should you use it. Also, call me crazy but I'm pretty sure there is a legal requirement that mandates that warrants be very specific about who/what they apply to and what they expect to find in order to be justifiable.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Law enforcement will just go to the carriers who have your rough location data regardless of your GPS settings. They probably aren't keeping detailed tracklogs like Google today but I'm sure some fat government contracts can fix that.
- turc1656 8y ago
  Yes, but that gives them tower connectivity only. Which is very, very general in terms of location unless you triangulate the location in real-time. And even then, you have to be connected to at least 3 towers at once for that to be accurate, which to my knowledge is not how phones operate. So they will only get the very rough location based on which tower you were connected to and when. In any modestly populated area that becomes effectively worthless in both practicality and the courtroom. In a city like NYC, that would literally result in a dragnet of tens of thousands for each of the major service providers. Even a bad attorney could get that thrown out immediately.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    I wouldn't trust that GPS is actually off for the baseband processor when you set it off. This is key for the real time location tracking by phone number.
everdrive 8y ago
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Android really appears to be a different beast: https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/ https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...
- turc1656 8y ago
  Interesting. But Google has something that allows all users to see what has been collected on them. All of my stuff is empty - no website history, no location history, no youtube history, etc. All of it is empty and always has been when I check periodically. So then the question becomes...is Quartz wrong or is Google simply lying about what they have on me? And FWIW, I checked prior to the Quartz article being written so it would have been before any actions were taken by Google to modify its practices.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Law enforcement will just go to the carriers who have your rough location data regardless of your GPS settings. They probably aren't keeping detailed tracklogs like Google today but I'm sure some fat government contracts can fix that.

turc1656 8y ago
Yes, but that gives them tower connectivity only. Which is very, very general in terms of location unless you triangulate the location in real-time. And even then, you have to be connected to at least 3 towers at once for that to be accurate, which to my knowledge is not how phones operate. So they will only get the very rough location based on which tower you were connected to and when. In any modestly populated area that becomes effectively worthless in both practicality and the courtroom. In a city like NYC, that would literally result in a dragnet of tens of thousands for each of the major service providers. Even a bad attorney could get that thrown out immediately.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  I wouldn't trust that GPS is actually off for the baseband processor when you set it off. This is key for the real time location tracking by phone number.

everdrive 8y ago

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Android really appears to be a different beast: https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/ https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...

turc1656 8y ago
Interesting. But Google has something that allows all users to see what has been collected on them. All of my stuff is empty - no website history, no location history, no youtube history, etc. All of it is empty and always has been when I check periodically. So then the question becomes...is Quartz wrong or is Google simply lying about what they have on me? And FWIW, I checked prior to the Quartz article being written so it would have been before any actions were taken by Google to modify its practices.