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The government had a warrant for the data. You are able to disable the feature which allows Google to collect this location history. If you had disabled it, G
by jlmorton 7y ago
The government had a warrant for the data. You are able to disable the feature which allows Google to collect this location history. If you had disabled it, Google never would have stored it. But with the feature enabled, and with the government presenting a valid warrant, what would you have Google do?
- wolco 7y agoIs it disabled by default? If not it is a setting not a feature.
- boring_twenties 7y agoIt explicitly asks you if you want to enable location services at all when you first set up the phone. I'm pretty sure it asked me if I wanted to enable Location History separately, but not 100%.
- throwaway2048 7y agoGoogle has admitted they harvest location data even with that setting disabled. https://www.hackread.com/google-collects-android-location-data-even-if-location-services-is-off/ https://www.hackread.com/google-collects-android-location-da...
- deogeo 7y agoI think this counts as a "general warrant", and is probably unconstitutional. To find which phones were in an area, the location history of everyone has to be searched. But warrants for everyone's location would be illegal, so if Google does that filtering, we kind of pretend it's legal. For now - I don't think this specific practice has been ruled on by the supreme court yet. As far as Google is concerned - I'd have them not store the data in the first place, and at a minimum have the spying be opt-in, instead of out. But I can't fault them for what they did after getting the warrant. Ideally they would try to fight it and get a supreme court ruling, but that's squarely in the good bucket. As it stands, the best I can hope from them is to be neutral, or at least not too evil.