22 ms·

Google promised to delete sensitive data. It logged my abortion clinic visit

184 points by dgllghr 3y ago

mysterydip 3y ago
The only way to be sure your data isn't used is if it doesn't exist in the first place. Promises of filtering or safeguards or deletion after the fact aren't worth the pixels they're displayed on.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- brookst 3y ago
  Absolutism is such a luxury. I miss those days. Most of us have to accept tradeoffs of convenience vs security, privacy vs durability of data, cost vs benefit. And we have to rely on the sometimes erroneous, sometimes fraudulent claims of various companies and people when making tradeoff decisions, knowing they are generally more or less accurate but occasionally totally wrong.
  - George83728 3y ago
    The "absolutism" of simply not choosing to have Google track you everywhere you go needn't be something you miss. You can have it today, if you want it.
    - brookst 3y ago
      Sure, if you scope the problem to Google. How about having nobody track you? No companies, no governments, nobody. What does that look like?
  - mysterydip 3y ago
    I wasn't saying anything about course of action. Everyone has their own weights and values on pros and cons of everything. All I'm saying is once the data genie leaves the bottle, anything could happen to it, regardless of promise or intent. Emails that I sent 20 years ago could still be out there on a drive or tape somewhere, and until every copy of it disappears, it could be used in the future by anyone for anything. Maybe it already has, I wouldn't know. The only way for it not to be used is if I never made it. So instead of dismissing this as naive absolutism, take it as a public service announcement to "think before you use" any service.
actuator 3y ago
Lazy journalism. In other words, their code might not cover all cases. Location history is opt in and has to be turned on. I like keeping history of where I am visiting but people can keep it off.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  > opt in and has to be turned on You make it sound like one has to go out of their way to enable it. Pretty sure it’s one of several steps you click through when you sign up for a Google account. And so most people will probably accept it. Add to that what the article is actually about. Google promised to remove visits to sensitive locations, but the visits were not removed.
  - vuln 3y ago
    > Pretty sure it’s one of several steps you click through when you sign up for a Google account. And so most people will probably accept it. So google ASKS you to turn on location data during setup. It’s the consumer’s decision to turn it on and reap the _$benefits_ or keep it off and lose out on _$benefits_. Should there be a secondary and tertiary prompt warning of the exact data collected? Will users just mindlessly click through those too?
    - codetrotter 3y ago
      No it should not ask at all during setup. You should have to manually go into settings and enable it there. That’s what real opt-in is. Not overwhelming the user with a bunch of questions during account setup.
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
      Is it that simple though? 99% of businesses do not share full context of the use of personal data in a way where user could understand all the unintended consequences of their choice. Does Google explicitly tell users when they opt-in to some feature that it may result in sensitive data eventually exposed?
  - 3y ago
hospitalJail 3y ago
At least you can be aware your data is logged. The other company uses their marketing to pretend it isn't. If I need to have a private conversation, we leave phones in the house and go for a walk. I havent had the need to hide my location, but I'd do the same.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Are you that worried about the yellow dot (on iOS) or equivalent on Android being overriden to hide microphone use? Edit: Apparently people disliked my phrasing. Before Apple added the yellow dot to indicate the microphone was live I was far more sensitive to leaving phones behind. Now, I've relaxed somewhat. Absent concerns about intelligence service level eavesdroppers (which is a real concern for some situations), is there really still a threat there?
  - vhcr 3y ago
    Depends on how sure you want to be that nobody is listening, it's not necessary for the yellow dot to be overridden, maybe the attacker is using the accelerometer to act as an improvised microphone.
    - callalex 3y ago
      Do you have an example of this working, even in a pure research setting?
    - sulam 3y ago
      Sorry, this is absolutely not a thing. You’d have something if you said that someone could use the speaker as a mic, although of course you can’t do that on a phone without taking it apart. But the accelerometer on a phone, while in the phone, cannot be used as a microphone. I’d be very very impressed if someone managed to get usable sound out of an accelerometer floating in free space even, although that’s mildly conceivable. And while I hate to appeal to authority, I worked at Fitbit for 7 years and was directly responsible for the algorithms team that built the step counting, activity recognition and other algorithms for a chunk of that time. I’m very familiar with what the data off an accelerometer looks like and what you can train a model to extract from it.
jaimehrubiks 3y ago
Not defending google but this guy has manually enabled one of the most privacy sensitivity features on Google, the Maps location history timeline (which is great if you like it and want to trade your privacy), and then expects google to be perfect at detecting specifically "personal" visits like clinics and deleting them automatically, proving that this new "feature" kinda works but not very well as it misses multiple cases (although who knows if developers accounted for someone visiting 20 abortion clinics one after the other the same day, and waiting in the parking..., What if developers account for GPS signal loss, wifi network identification or other location information??)
- Phemist 3y ago
  Why can google not store history only locally... there is imo only marginal utility for having this synched to the cloud..
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    It has marginal utility for the user. It has significant utility for Google.
    - Phemist 3y ago
      Fair.. "you are the product" strikes again
    - rrdharan 3y ago
      I use at least 9 devices (four laptops, a desktop, watch, two phones, tablet) with Maps on them and very much appreciate having the location data synced serverside.
      - mmsnberbar66 3y ago
        why do you have 4 laptops?
        3y ago
prepend 3y ago
Users need to turn off location history, or manually delete sensitive trips. It’s not that Google is doing anything purposely malicious, it’s just that it doesn’t differentiate between sitting in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood to get an abortion vs sitting in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood drinking the coffee you got next door at Starbucks. Or sitting in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood getting ready for your abortion vs getting ready to protest abortions. This author seems to think google has too much knowledge and doesn’t know that it’s just dumb. It also seems odd that they don’t call out how to fix this by turning off location history, or removing items, or not using google. These are the only ways that I would feel safe that a group wasn’t able to find my abortion info. That being said, Id rather all this data collection be outlawed and if this confusion leads to the death of selling location data then I’m all for it. I think the harm is greater from google (and others) selling location data to sell sugar and food and other harmful things through ads than the few incidents of law enforcement prosecuting abortions. Of course the harm from the micro offense of showing an ad for McDonald’s when I search for healthy restaurants and break down is very much below prosecuting women from seeking healthcare, it’s much more common. So it would be nice to remove the harm from 1M instances of crappy targeted ads from location as well as each 1 instance of abortion data misused or gay priests outed.
- bioemerl 3y ago
  > Users need to turn off location history. But I want this data, and it's a dilemma for me. I want to look back in my past 20 years from now and see where I was at every moment, it's super cool information to have and would help me inform my history. This is probably a good question for all you guys. Is there an open source alternative location data logger that I could use instead for something like this?
  - galbar 3y ago
    I use nextcloud with the app called "PhoneTrack" for this purpose
  - snarg 3y ago
    This is a ridiculous argument. Google Maps is all but useless with location history turned off. Google offers the illusion of choice because the option makes it sound like they respect your privacy, while they're strongly motivated to convince you to hand over your data.
joelfried 3y ago
Given that knowingly visiting one of these locations exposes you to potential liability in the state of Texas, I wonder whether this exposes Google itself to any liability -- especially if there's any chance that they might log you at an abortion clinic when you in fact were next door . . .
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vodou 3y ago
A bit meta (sorry): Why do Americans keep calling it abortion clinics? Isn't maternity care center or maternity clinic a bit more suitable. Abortions is just a small fraction of what they do, at least at my corner of the world.
- cmonagle 3y ago
  In the North American context, "maternity care" would probably be understood as midwifery, which is not Planned Parenthood's main vocation. That said, you're correct that Planned Parenthood offers many more services than just abortion, but the category they'd be in is "sexual and reproductive healthcare," not "maternity care." Many advocates are pushing for "abortion forward" language to de-stigmatize the procedure, and (at least in Canada) some clinics are opting for less euphemistic names.[0] 0. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-clinics-language-1.6747788#:~:text=In%20a%202021%20online%20guide,%22%20or%20%22reproductive%20choice.%22 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-clinics-language-1.6...
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Because "abortion" is a hot political issue in the US, and a word that pushes lots of people's emotional buttons. And because anyone using less-button-pushing words to describe things is a for-sure loser in the Darwinian attention economy.
- slackfan 3y ago
  Because that's what they provide, and that's what they deal in, exclusively. Maternity care centers generally deal with other aspects of pregnancy, though some may also provide abortion services.
  - pr0zac 3y ago
    I got testicular/prostate cancer screening done at a Planned Parenthood (randomly, it was the closest place offering it) so I'm pretty sure they provide services other than abortions?
    - 3y ago
mxxc 3y ago
plenty of countries in the world where this is a non-issue :)
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
quadrifoliate 3y ago
The author offers a solution that doesn't involve Google, but honestly, the solution is far more fundamental. Technology cannot protect you when your government is trying to push intrusive and oppressive laws. So -- do follow the author's recommendations, but also vote out those politicians and parties who are trying to push these laws at the local, state, and national level. That should be a coda to every one of these articles.
- 2ICofafireteam 3y ago
  Absolutely speak with your vote. I didn't notice a simple, practical piece of advice: Leave your phone at home. It would be inconvenient but if I did something I wanted to keep very private, I would leave my phone on my desk while I did it. A change in my activity or its absence reveals something possibly happened, but at least doesn't spell it out. The state can build their own case.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  "Technology cannot protect you when your government is trying to push intrusive and oppressive laws." Rubbish. The Onion Router (TOR) is specifically built for people trying to evade authoritarian governments with "intrusive and oppressive laws". GPG. E2EE. Technology can't _guarantee_ that an authoritarian government won't sniff you out, but it can at least partially protect you. "also vote out those politicians and parties who are trying to push these laws at the local, state, and national level." That's not realistic for a number of reasons. In the US, almost all politicians want to create a surveillance state -- they just disagree on who they want to target. And lots of voters support Their Side on this. Putting aside partisanship, voters overwhelmingly support laws targeting Sex Offenders, including mass surveillance ostensibly for hunting down the witches. But let's say that we magically vote out all of the authoritarians tomorrow -- what about in two years? 10 years? 20 years? One of the issues with this data collection is that it is _forever_. In 20 years, the government can go to Google and ask them what you were doing today, and Google has that because the data lasts _forever_. So, yes, we should target authoritarian politicians and vote them out. We should also persuade the populace that mass surveillance is always a bad idea. We should avoid companies that are deliberately surveilling us. And finally, we should specifically use technology to protect us from surveillance, because the first three things aren't very realistic.
dekhn 3y ago
Google should never have said they would implement this feature. It was a mistake because they can't and don't want to do it properly enough to be useful.
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
Turn off location tracking lol
crazygringo 3y ago
This article doesn't seem to be supported by the provided facts. In all cases except one, the feature seems to be working as intended: > "After I sat for 15 minutes in the parking lots of two clinics south of San Francisco, Google deleted each from my location history within 24 hours. It did the same for my colleague’s two visits to clinics in Florida." And in the one case where the author claims it hasn't been deleted, the screenshot [1] isn't showing Planned Parenthood as part of the timeline at all. It's simply showing it as a map location like other nearby locations not on the path (like "Himalayan Cuisine") -- and even labels it as "Recently viewed", which is why it might be prioritizing showing it when it might not otherwise. Not because it was in the timeline, but because it was recently viewed. The only other criticism is: > Often, Google kept my location on its timeline but only labeled it as the name of a neighborhood rather than a specific clinic. One time, it labeled my visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic as the coffee shop next door, and kept the record. But what is Google supposed to do? It thinks you went to the coffee shop because location data isn't perfect. Sometimes it labels something adjacent and sometimes it doesn't label anything at all. The feature seems to be working as intended, and if you want more privacy then just turn your timeline history off. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/P7HKDUSG5XV7XNTVFRPHYTPH2I.jpg&w=1200 https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://...
- JohnFen 3y ago
  It's a great reminder, though, that relying on Google to be able to discern a sensitive situation isn't adequate. Even if Google was perfect, they can't read minds. Best practice still has to remain to turn off your phone, or at least put it in airplane mode, before you leave the house if you need more privacy.
  - throwwwaway69 3y ago
    I believe even in airplane mode it’s been shown that your phone will still send general location data back to your carrier once back online but I don’t recall specifics
adolph 3y ago
I didn't see any opt-in sensitive location redaction settings, just timed deletetion. I did see this: From: Protecting people’s privacy on health topics, Jul 01, 2022, Jen Fitzpatrick SVP, Core Location History: Location History is a Google account setting that is off by default, and for those that turn it on, we provide simple controls like auto-delete so users can easily delete parts, or all, of their data at any time. Some of the places people visit — including medical facilities like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics, and others — can be particularly personal. Today, we’re announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit. This change will take effect in the coming weeks. https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-peoples-privacy-on-health-topics/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-pe...
nologic01 3y ago
Mobile phones are no longer optional devices that citizens can do without. The noose is tightening and even in "enlightened" privacy regimes like in Europe, it slowly but surely becomes impossible to participate in normal activity without using one. Digital identity, access to banking services etc. are all routed through this device. This central role of the mobile is simply incompatible with it being an adtech gadget. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. The geniuses behind regulation and policy making in this space must decide what sort of game they are playing, why are they procrastinating and what the endgame is. I can think of three options going forward: * Draconian restrictions on existing mobile phone platforms so that people really don't have to worry about privacy any more (but this may destroy certain business models) * Funding a true open source mobile (e.g. linux based) as a public good so that people do have a real privacy friendly alternative that provides access to all these services * Provide separate (non-phone) portable digital devices that support for all critical identity or payment functions that citizens cannot opt out from. I should be able to use a feature phone and such a device to accomplish all non-optional digital functions. The bottom line is that the digitization of public sector / government / medical / financial services is now in full swing across the globe. The current arrangement is simply not fit for purpose.
2ICofafireteam 3y ago
If you bring someone for support, make sure they're taking the same precautions as you.
hatsune 3y ago
The fact that you handled Google data in the first place and kindly begged them to detect and delete sensitive ones is slightly out or order. The thing is regulate apps in first place.

184 points by dgllghr 3y ago

The only way to be sure your data isn't used is if it doesn't exist in the first place. Promises of filtering or safeguards or deletion after the fact aren't worth the pixels they're displayed on.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
brookst 3y ago
Absolutism is such a luxury. I miss those days. Most of us have to accept tradeoffs of convenience vs security, privacy vs durability of data, cost vs benefit. And we have to rely on the sometimes erroneous, sometimes fraudulent claims of various companies and people when making tradeoff decisions, knowing they are generally more or less accurate but occasionally totally wrong.
- George83728 3y ago
  The "absolutism" of simply not choosing to have Google track you everywhere you go needn't be something you miss. You can have it today, if you want it.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Sure, if you scope the problem to Google. How about having nobody track you? No companies, no governments, nobody. What does that look like?
- mysterydip 3y ago
  I wasn't saying anything about course of action. Everyone has their own weights and values on pros and cons of everything. All I'm saying is once the data genie leaves the bottle, anything could happen to it, regardless of promise or intent. Emails that I sent 20 years ago could still be out there on a drive or tape somewhere, and until every copy of it disappears, it could be used in the future by anyone for anything. Maybe it already has, I wouldn't know. The only way for it not to be used is if I never made it. So instead of dismissing this as naive absolutism, take it as a public service announcement to "think before you use" any service.

actuator 3y ago

Lazy journalism. In other words, their code might not cover all cases. Location history is opt in and has to be turned on. I like keeping history of where I am visiting but people can keep it off.

codetrotter 3y ago
> opt in and has to be turned on You make it sound like one has to go out of their way to enable it. Pretty sure it’s one of several steps you click through when you sign up for a Google account. And so most people will probably accept it. Add to that what the article is actually about. Google promised to remove visits to sensitive locations, but the visits were not removed.
- vuln 3y ago
  > Pretty sure it’s one of several steps you click through when you sign up for a Google account. And so most people will probably accept it. So google ASKS you to turn on location data during setup. It’s the consumer’s decision to turn it on and reap the _$benefits_ or keep it off and lose out on _$benefits_. Should there be a secondary and tertiary prompt warning of the exact data collected? Will users just mindlessly click through those too?
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    No it should not ask at all during setup. You should have to manually go into settings and enable it there. That’s what real opt-in is. Not overwhelming the user with a bunch of questions during account setup.
  - ivan_gammel 3y ago
    Is it that simple though? 99% of businesses do not share full context of the use of personal data in a way where user could understand all the unintended consequences of their choice. Does Google explicitly tell users when they opt-in to some feature that it may result in sensitive data eventually exposed?
- 3y ago

hospitalJail 3y ago

At least you can be aware your data is logged. The other company uses their marketing to pretend it isn't. If I need to have a private conversation, we leave phones in the house and go for a walk. I havent had the need to hide my location, but I'd do the same.

HWR_14 3y ago
Are you that worried about the yellow dot (on iOS) or equivalent on Android being overriden to hide microphone use? Edit: Apparently people disliked my phrasing. Before Apple added the yellow dot to indicate the microphone was live I was far more sensitive to leaving phones behind. Now, I've relaxed somewhat. Absent concerns about intelligence service level eavesdroppers (which is a real concern for some situations), is there really still a threat there?
- vhcr 3y ago
  Depends on how sure you want to be that nobody is listening, it's not necessary for the yellow dot to be overridden, maybe the attacker is using the accelerometer to act as an improvised microphone.
  - callalex 3y ago
    Do you have an example of this working, even in a pure research setting?
  - sulam 3y ago
    Sorry, this is absolutely not a thing. You’d have something if you said that someone could use the speaker as a mic, although of course you can’t do that on a phone without taking it apart. But the accelerometer on a phone, while in the phone, cannot be used as a microphone. I’d be very very impressed if someone managed to get usable sound out of an accelerometer floating in free space even, although that’s mildly conceivable. And while I hate to appeal to authority, I worked at Fitbit for 7 years and was directly responsible for the algorithms team that built the step counting, activity recognition and other algorithms for a chunk of that time. I’m very familiar with what the data off an accelerometer looks like and what you can train a model to extract from it.

jaimehrubiks 3y ago

Not defending google but this guy has manually enabled one of the most privacy sensitivity features on Google, the Maps location history timeline (which is great if you like it and want to trade your privacy), and then expects google to be perfect at detecting specifically "personal" visits like clinics and deleting them automatically, proving that this new "feature" kinda works but not very well as it misses multiple cases (although who knows if developers accounted for someone visiting 20 abortion clinics one after the other the same day, and waiting in the parking..., What if developers account for GPS signal loss, wifi network identification or other location information??)

Phemist 3y ago
Why can google not store history only locally... there is imo only marginal utility for having this synched to the cloud..
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  It has marginal utility for the user. It has significant utility for Google.
  - Phemist 3y ago
    Fair.. "you are the product" strikes again
  - rrdharan 3y ago
    I use at least 9 devices (four laptops, a desktop, watch, two phones, tablet) with Maps on them and very much appreciate having the location data synced serverside.
    - mmsnberbar66 3y ago
      why do you have 4 laptops?
      - 3y ago

prepend 3y ago

Users need to turn off location history, or manually delete sensitive trips. It’s not that Google is doing anything purposely malicious, it’s just that it doesn’t differentiate between sitting in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood to get an abortion vs sitting in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood drinking the coffee you got next door at Starbucks. Or sitting in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood getting ready for your abortion vs getting ready to protest abortions. This author seems to think google has too much knowledge and doesn’t know that it’s just dumb. It also seems odd that they don’t call out how to fix this by turning off location history, or removing items, or not using google. These are the only ways that I would feel safe that a group wasn’t able to find my abortion info. That being said, Id rather all this data collection be outlawed and if this confusion leads to the death of selling location data then I’m all for it. I think the harm is greater from google (and others) selling location data to sell sugar and food and other harmful things through ads than the few incidents of law enforcement prosecuting abortions. Of course the harm from the micro offense of showing an ad for McDonald’s when I search for healthy restaurants and break down is very much below prosecuting women from seeking healthcare, it’s much more common. So it would be nice to remove the harm from 1M instances of crappy targeted ads from location as well as each 1 instance of abortion data misused or gay priests outed.

bioemerl 3y ago
> Users need to turn off location history. But I want this data, and it's a dilemma for me. I want to look back in my past 20 years from now and see where I was at every moment, it's super cool information to have and would help me inform my history. This is probably a good question for all you guys. Is there an open source alternative location data logger that I could use instead for something like this?
- galbar 3y ago
  I use nextcloud with the app called "PhoneTrack" for this purpose
- snarg 3y ago
  This is a ridiculous argument. Google Maps is all but useless with location history turned off. Google offers the illusion of choice because the option makes it sound like they respect your privacy, while they're strongly motivated to convince you to hand over your data.

joelfried 3y ago

Given that knowingly visiting one of these locations exposes you to potential liability in the state of Texas, I wonder whether this exposes Google itself to any liability -- especially if there's any chance that they might log you at an abortion clinic when you in fact were next door . . .

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

vodou 3y ago

A bit meta (sorry): Why do Americans keep calling it abortion clinics? Isn't maternity care center or maternity clinic a bit more suitable. Abortions is just a small fraction of what they do, at least at my corner of the world.

cmonagle 3y ago
In the North American context, "maternity care" would probably be understood as midwifery, which is not Planned Parenthood's main vocation. That said, you're correct that Planned Parenthood offers many more services than just abortion, but the category they'd be in is "sexual and reproductive healthcare," not "maternity care." Many advocates are pushing for "abortion forward" language to de-stigmatize the procedure, and (at least in Canada) some clinics are opting for less euphemistic names.[0] 0. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-clinics-language-1.6747788#:~:text=In%20a%202021%20online%20guide,%22%20or%20%22reproductive%20choice.%22 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-clinics-language-1.6...
bell-cot 3y ago
Because "abortion" is a hot political issue in the US, and a word that pushes lots of people's emotional buttons. And because anyone using less-button-pushing words to describe things is a for-sure loser in the Darwinian attention economy.
slackfan 3y ago
Because that's what they provide, and that's what they deal in, exclusively. Maternity care centers generally deal with other aspects of pregnancy, though some may also provide abortion services.
- pr0zac 3y ago
  I got testicular/prostate cancer screening done at a Planned Parenthood (randomly, it was the closest place offering it) so I'm pretty sure they provide services other than abortions?
  - 3y ago

mxxc 3y ago

plenty of countries in the world where this is a non-issue :)

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

[dead]

quadrifoliate 3y ago

The author offers a solution that doesn't involve Google, but honestly, the solution is far more fundamental. Technology cannot protect you when your government is trying to push intrusive and oppressive laws. So -- do follow the author's recommendations, but also vote out those politicians and parties who are trying to push these laws at the local, state, and national level. That should be a coda to every one of these articles.

2ICofafireteam 3y ago
Absolutely speak with your vote. I didn't notice a simple, practical piece of advice: Leave your phone at home. It would be inconvenient but if I did something I wanted to keep very private, I would leave my phone on my desk while I did it. A change in my activity or its absence reveals something possibly happened, but at least doesn't spell it out. The state can build their own case.
brightlancer 3y ago
"Technology cannot protect you when your government is trying to push intrusive and oppressive laws." Rubbish. The Onion Router (TOR) is specifically built for people trying to evade authoritarian governments with "intrusive and oppressive laws". GPG. E2EE. Technology can't _guarantee_ that an authoritarian government won't sniff you out, but it can at least partially protect you. "also vote out those politicians and parties who are trying to push these laws at the local, state, and national level." That's not realistic for a number of reasons. In the US, almost all politicians want to create a surveillance state -- they just disagree on who they want to target. And lots of voters support Their Side on this. Putting aside partisanship, voters overwhelmingly support laws targeting Sex Offenders, including mass surveillance ostensibly for hunting down the witches. But let's say that we magically vote out all of the authoritarians tomorrow -- what about in two years? 10 years? 20 years? One of the issues with this data collection is that it is _forever_. In 20 years, the government can go to Google and ask them what you were doing today, and Google has that because the data lasts _forever_. So, yes, we should target authoritarian politicians and vote them out. We should also persuade the populace that mass surveillance is always a bad idea. We should avoid companies that are deliberately surveilling us. And finally, we should specifically use technology to protect us from surveillance, because the first three things aren't very realistic.

dekhn 3y ago

Google should never have said they would implement this feature. It was a mistake because they can't and don't want to do it properly enough to be useful.

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago

Turn off location tracking lol

crazygringo 3y ago

This article doesn't seem to be supported by the provided facts. In all cases except one, the feature seems to be working as intended: > "After I sat for 15 minutes in the parking lots of two clinics south of San Francisco, Google deleted each from my location history within 24 hours. It did the same for my colleague’s two visits to clinics in Florida." And in the one case where the author claims it hasn't been deleted, the screenshot [1] isn't showing Planned Parenthood as part of the timeline at all. It's simply showing it as a map location like other nearby locations not on the path (like "Himalayan Cuisine") -- and even labels it as "Recently viewed", which is why it might be prioritizing showing it when it might not otherwise. Not because it was in the timeline, but because it was recently viewed. The only other criticism is: > Often, Google kept my location on its timeline but only labeled it as the name of a neighborhood rather than a specific clinic. One time, it labeled my visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic as the coffee shop next door, and kept the record. But what is Google supposed to do? It thinks you went to the coffee shop because location data isn't perfect. Sometimes it labels something adjacent and sometimes it doesn't label anything at all. The feature seems to be working as intended, and if you want more privacy then just turn your timeline history off. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/P7HKDUSG5XV7XNTVFRPHYTPH2I.jpg&w=1200 https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://...

JohnFen 3y ago
It's a great reminder, though, that relying on Google to be able to discern a sensitive situation isn't adequate. Even if Google was perfect, they can't read minds. Best practice still has to remain to turn off your phone, or at least put it in airplane mode, before you leave the house if you need more privacy.
- throwwwaway69 3y ago
  I believe even in airplane mode it’s been shown that your phone will still send general location data back to your carrier once back online but I don’t recall specifics

adolph 3y ago

I didn't see any opt-in sensitive location redaction settings, just timed deletetion. I did see this: From: Protecting people’s privacy on health topics, Jul 01, 2022, Jen Fitzpatrick SVP, Core Location History: Location History is a Google account setting that is off by default, and for those that turn it on, we provide simple controls like auto-delete so users can easily delete parts, or all, of their data at any time. Some of the places people visit — including medical facilities like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics, and others — can be particularly personal. Today, we’re announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit. This change will take effect in the coming weeks. https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-peoples-privacy-on-health-topics/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-pe...

nologic01 3y ago

Mobile phones are no longer optional devices that citizens can do without. The noose is tightening and even in "enlightened" privacy regimes like in Europe, it slowly but surely becomes impossible to participate in normal activity without using one. Digital identity, access to banking services etc. are all routed through this device. This central role of the mobile is simply incompatible with it being an adtech gadget. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. The geniuses behind regulation and policy making in this space must decide what sort of game they are playing, why are they procrastinating and what the endgame is. I can think of three options going forward: * Draconian restrictions on existing mobile phone platforms so that people really don't have to worry about privacy any more (but this may destroy certain business models) * Funding a true open source mobile (e.g. linux based) as a public good so that people do have a real privacy friendly alternative that provides access to all these services * Provide separate (non-phone) portable digital devices that support for all critical identity or payment functions that citizens cannot opt out from. I should be able to use a feature phone and such a device to accomplish all non-optional digital functions. The bottom line is that the digitization of public sector / government / medical / financial services is now in full swing across the globe. The current arrangement is simply not fit for purpose.

2ICofafireteam 3y ago

If you bring someone for support, make sure they're taking the same precautions as you.

hatsune 3y ago

The fact that you handled Google data in the first place and kindly begged them to detect and delete sensitive ones is slightly out or order. The thing is regulate apps in first place.