3 ms·
My Pixel phone has 64 GB of internal storage. About half is filled with my local playlists, the other half is apps. This leaves little spaces for high resolutio
by Karawebnetwork 4y ago
My Pixel phone has 64 GB of internal storage. About half is filled with my local playlists, the other half is apps. This leaves little spaces for high resolutions photos and videos. Google's answer to this was to give everyone free unlimited original quality storage on Google Photos.
When my phone is full, a prompt appears to warn me about it and tells me to free up space. When I do this, it uploads all photos and videos to Google Photos.
Google Photos automatically sort the content. Clicking "People & Pets" displays a grid of thumbnails. All of those thumbnails are faces. For example, one of those faces is my mother. When I press on it, it shows all the photos available on my account. That's every photos/videos I have ever uploaded since having the service + every photos/videos I have uploaded to it since.
What's even weirder is that is also groups face of people in the background. There are people in there that live in my neighborhood. Apparently, some appear more than other. I can press the thumbnail of some blond stranger and apparently she is in 8 of my photos and one video. From that, I can gather what beer she likes, what coffee place she attends, etc.
No one is forced to use it but it is the convenient way to use the phones. Was the face-grouping technology in a legal disclaimer somewhere? Perhaps. Was I aware of this until years after I started using the service? No.