8 ms·

Does anyone else find this a little ironic given Google is a company that has been logging peoples location to a very fine detail for years

cm2187 7y ago
And Apple.
- gruez 7y ago
  Apple logs location history? Other than the wifi location log from ios4 and the significant locations feature (opt in, device only), I don't know how apple is logging locations.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    Not only it does but I even remember a story of a crime that was solved in Germany a few years ago just by requesting from Apple the history of the locations.
    - jeromegv 7y ago
      "I remember a story that is the entire opposite of what you said". If you have an argument to make based on a specific event, you're going to have to do better and provide some sources. "I remember a story", are we going to throw the full privacy history of Apple away based on your "history" that you remember? Please provide sources or do some research before you comment.
  - slg 7y ago
    On your iPhone you can go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services -> Significant Locations and you will see that Apple does keep track of at least some of your location history and tries to analyze it if you don't actively turn it off.
    - angott 7y ago
      Not true. The iOS location history is encrypted and stored in your iCloud account with a key that never leaves your device. So it's quite different from Google's Location History: Apple stores it, but they cannot read it. And if you disable iCloud, the data remains exclusively on your device.
      - three_seagrass 7y ago
        That iCloud key only prevents man in the middle attacks. You can still use the key to decrypt the data at rest in the cloud servers, and Apple stores both. And if you're in China, Apple stores both on Chinese government owned servers: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-apple-in-china/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - extra88 7y ago
      On my iPhone running iOS 13, I had to go a level deeper to find that: Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services -> Significant Locations. To view Significant Locations, I have to provide my Touch ID again. Also, the fine print says "Significant Locations are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by Apple." Text repeated in "Location Services & Privacy"[0]. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056
      - benhurmarcel 7y ago
        Is there any negative consequences to turning that off? What are those locations used for?
        javagram 7y ago
        If you click on the link in the post you respond to, it explains what the locations are used for.
- antipaul 7y ago
  You can’t put Apple and Google in the same bucket when it comes to privacy. Sure, neither is probably perfect, but only one of them is an egregious violator whose business model depends on surveillance capitalism
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    Are you talking about the one that won't let you install apps on your own phone without telling it who you are? They're the same. If anything, Apple is worse.
  - mackrevinack 7y ago
    apple is closed source and extremely secretive so i will keep putting them in the same bucket thanks
    - antipaul 7y ago
      That seems like a different topic than privacy’s relationship to their business model...
cactus2093 7y ago
And we'll see how this plays out, perhaps it will be tragically ironic. The majority of people don't ever think about this and are happy to give their location info to Google constantly all day long. This protocol is in almost all ways much less intrusive and more protective of privacy, and the upside for society is potentially high. It should be a complete no-brainer that everyone who is ok using google or apple maps, i.e. probably 95+% of the country, be ok downloading their local health department's contact tracing app if it uses these APIs. But we'll see how it plays out, in the end it will surely come down to how this is politicized and not actually be based on the technical merits of this protocol at all.
- nicetryguy 7y ago
  It all seemed so innocent and helpful a decade ago... Free GPS and navigation services have a price. I doubt many people are going back to Garmin anytime soon. Just the way it is now.
  - mackrevinack 7y ago
    any time I've used garmin over the years it had been only slightly better then useless. there are other options though. ive been using openstreetmap for about 4 years and have only found the need to use Google once in all that time. although with openstreetmap being crowd sources it really depends on how much work has been done in a particular area but in my country its pretty decent
OrgNet 7y ago
It is very valuable information, why would they let you access it if they dont have to?
dan-robertson 7y ago
I have four arguments as to why google are behaving this way with regards to this data. I’ve no idea which, if any, they operate by: 1. It’s actually crap and they don’t want their advertisers to know that their ads are sold based on crap quality data/don’t want the backlash of doing a poor job helping 2. Most people at google care a lot about privacy (either in the secret kept between you and google sense or the more common sense definition people seem to use on hn) and they don’t really think about this data as something the firm has/should release 3. They are afraid that if governments realised they had this data then google would be regulated or every minor security agency/random government department would be demanding access to it by law. 4. They strongly feel that surveillance by (well intentioned?) private companies is ok but by governments it os not.
- WatchDog 7y ago
  Re: #1 The quality of their location data is pretty easy to audit personally by looking at ones location history.
  - renewiltord 7y ago
    And it's fantastic. I love the location timeline feature they build for you from it.
  - dan-robertson 7y ago
    I expect google buys data from data brokers and this is counted as sufficiently anonymous to not be included in the location history google shows. But this misses the point because looking at your location history shows you the quality of a tiny fraction of Google’s location data and don’t tell you much about the rest of the data
- munificent 7y ago
  I work at Google but don't have any visibility into this project, nor do I speak for Google on this. My uninformed guess is that the answer is more precisely: 5. They very much want this project to succeed so that it can save lives. They know privacy concerns are (rightly) an existential threat to the success of the project, so they are trying to address those by drawing this firm line. It's not 1 or 3 because anyone can look at the location data Google gathers on them and judge for themselves if it's crap. Just search for "view google location history" and it will take you right there. I think 2 is pretty close to the mark. Despite HN's understandably cynical take, everyone I talk to at Google cares a lot about user privacy.

cm2187 7y ago

And Apple.

gruez 7y ago
Apple logs location history? Other than the wifi location log from ios4 and the significant locations feature (opt in, device only), I don't know how apple is logging locations.
- cm2187 7y ago
  Not only it does but I even remember a story of a crime that was solved in Germany a few years ago just by requesting from Apple the history of the locations.
  - jeromegv 7y ago
    "I remember a story that is the entire opposite of what you said". If you have an argument to make based on a specific event, you're going to have to do better and provide some sources. "I remember a story", are we going to throw the full privacy history of Apple away based on your "history" that you remember? Please provide sources or do some research before you comment.
- slg 7y ago
  On your iPhone you can go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services -> Significant Locations and you will see that Apple does keep track of at least some of your location history and tries to analyze it if you don't actively turn it off.
  - angott 7y ago
    Not true. The iOS location history is encrypted and stored in your iCloud account with a key that never leaves your device. So it's quite different from Google's Location History: Apple stores it, but they cannot read it. And if you disable iCloud, the data remains exclusively on your device.
    - three_seagrass 7y ago
      That iCloud key only prevents man in the middle attacks. You can still use the key to decrypt the data at rest in the cloud servers, and Apple stores both. And if you're in China, Apple stores both on Chinese government owned servers: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-apple-in-china/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - extra88 7y ago
    On my iPhone running iOS 13, I had to go a level deeper to find that: Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services -> Significant Locations. To view Significant Locations, I have to provide my Touch ID again. Also, the fine print says "Significant Locations are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by Apple." Text repeated in "Location Services & Privacy"[0]. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056
    - benhurmarcel 7y ago
      Is there any negative consequences to turning that off? What are those locations used for?
      - javagram 7y ago
        If you click on the link in the post you respond to, it explains what the locations are used for.
antipaul 7y ago
You can’t put Apple and Google in the same bucket when it comes to privacy. Sure, neither is probably perfect, but only one of them is an egregious violator whose business model depends on surveillance capitalism
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  Are you talking about the one that won't let you install apps on your own phone without telling it who you are? They're the same. If anything, Apple is worse.
- mackrevinack 7y ago
  apple is closed source and extremely secretive so i will keep putting them in the same bucket thanks
  - antipaul 7y ago
    That seems like a different topic than privacy’s relationship to their business model...

cactus2093 7y ago

And we'll see how this plays out, perhaps it will be tragically ironic. The majority of people don't ever think about this and are happy to give their location info to Google constantly all day long. This protocol is in almost all ways much less intrusive and more protective of privacy, and the upside for society is potentially high. It should be a complete no-brainer that everyone who is ok using google or apple maps, i.e. probably 95+% of the country, be ok downloading their local health department's contact tracing app if it uses these APIs. But we'll see how it plays out, in the end it will surely come down to how this is politicized and not actually be based on the technical merits of this protocol at all.

nicetryguy 7y ago
It all seemed so innocent and helpful a decade ago... Free GPS and navigation services have a price. I doubt many people are going back to Garmin anytime soon. Just the way it is now.
- mackrevinack 7y ago
  any time I've used garmin over the years it had been only slightly better then useless. there are other options though. ive been using openstreetmap for about 4 years and have only found the need to use Google once in all that time. although with openstreetmap being crowd sources it really depends on how much work has been done in a particular area but in my country its pretty decent

OrgNet 7y ago

It is very valuable information, why would they let you access it if they dont have to?

dan-robertson 7y ago

I have four arguments as to why google are behaving this way with regards to this data. I’ve no idea which, if any, they operate by: 1. It’s actually crap and they don’t want their advertisers to know that their ads are sold based on crap quality data/don’t want the backlash of doing a poor job helping 2. Most people at google care a lot about privacy (either in the secret kept between you and google sense or the more common sense definition people seem to use on hn) and they don’t really think about this data as something the firm has/should release 3. They are afraid that if governments realised they had this data then google would be regulated or every minor security agency/random government department would be demanding access to it by law. 4. They strongly feel that surveillance by (well intentioned?) private companies is ok but by governments it os not.

WatchDog 7y ago
Re: #1 The quality of their location data is pretty easy to audit personally by looking at ones location history.
- renewiltord 7y ago
  And it's fantastic. I love the location timeline feature they build for you from it.
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  I expect google buys data from data brokers and this is counted as sufficiently anonymous to not be included in the location history google shows. But this misses the point because looking at your location history shows you the quality of a tiny fraction of Google’s location data and don’t tell you much about the rest of the data
munificent 7y ago
I work at Google but don't have any visibility into this project, nor do I speak for Google on this. My uninformed guess is that the answer is more precisely: 5. They very much want this project to succeed so that it can save lives. They know privacy concerns are (rightly) an existential threat to the success of the project, so they are trying to address those by drawing this firm line. It's not 1 or 3 because anyone can look at the location data Google gathers on them and judge for themselves if it's crap. Just search for "view google location history" and it will take you right there. I think 2 is pretty close to the mark. Despite HN's understandably cynical take, everyone I talk to at Google cares a lot about user privacy.