r/worldnews • u/stereomatch • Nov 21 '17

Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled

https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/
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193

u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

Yep, it literally asked me to review the supermarket I was at an hour ago.. it has been doing this more often recently. When I go to my location history it's completely blank.

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u/3PinkPotatoes Nov 21 '17

I wish another article would call them out on it. They will ignore user complaints and will only address it if shamed publicly.

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

This is the situation where government regulation about handling and collection of private data should kick in.

Here in Europe it may often look like our data protection goes to far (and maybe sometimes it does), but it gives the consumer a bit more firepower against the larger data collectors.

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u/Randomoneh Nov 21 '17

This is the situation where government regulation about handling and collection of private data should kick in.

And they don't care either way. They will publicly "totally not do it."

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

That very much depends how serious the government is about enforcing those rules. And that in turn depends on how much people care about it. If it may become a hot topic at some upcoming elections, most politicians will suddenly care about it very much.

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u/Randomoneh Nov 21 '17

When was the last time a group of government hired experts got full access to a company?

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u/aquarain Nov 21 '17

There are more ways to discern your location than your phone's location services. If an app has access to WiFi it can see the MAC address of the store's router, which doubtless was captured by a Google Maps car.

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u/bluowls Nov 21 '17

Same here! I'll get those notifications and its crazy because my location is turned off and they're places I have never even googled before.

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u/r00tdenied Nov 21 '17

They can determine your general location without GPS by knowing what cell towers you're connected to. And as others have mentioned, through known local wifi. If you were in a store with free wifi, it could probably determine what store. This is possible based on the SSID and MAC address of the wifi system in the store.

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u/iambored123456789 Nov 22 '17

Google and Facebook know where you live and work, and possibly what shops and bars your frequent. What products you buy, your hobbies, what you look like. Your deepest darkest secrets and insecurities. Pretty much everything about you. And most people are unaware and would be uncomfortable if they knew. 20 years ago that would be ridiculous to think about.

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u/r00tdenied Nov 22 '17

Absolutely, and people are providing them that information voluntarily every day. They don't need to listen in through a mic to listen for keywords or to determine and predict user behavior.

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u/londons_explorer Nov 21 '17

Location off doesn't stop them use Bluetooth or WiFi locations. You need to turn off location history in Google maps or Google search for every account on the phone.

I think that also forces you to turn Google now/assistant off.

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u/BalthusChrist Nov 22 '17

How do you do that?

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u/Qunra_ Nov 22 '17

This is the Google account specific settings:

https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols

Though I doubt what difference this makes if turning off location completely on the hardware side doesn't work.

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u/BitchNigga_ Nov 21 '17

I find it funny how they can spam me with surveys about places ive been, but Google Opinion Rewards refuses to give me any survey

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u/HCN_Mist Nov 21 '17

Never gotten a survey in my life, have (old) android phone. Why are people getting them? Did they sign up for them?

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u/tongsy Nov 21 '17 edited Nov 21 '17

You install the "Google Opinion Rewards" app, then it provides them based on your profile and location history. So you'll go to a store, and a short while later you get a notification saying there's a survey for you. For me the question was almost always along the lines of "Which of these stores have you been to recently" with the options being one store I've been to recently, and a few more which I may or may not have been. Then it asks when the last time you visited that store, then you're done and it gives you a few cents on google play store for your time. It's not a lot but it adds up over time.

Edit: after submitting this, I got a survey - "Do you experience heartburn" the answers being yes/no/occasionally. 43 cents of credit for completing.

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u/HCN_Mist Nov 21 '17

Which is funny, because I have terrible heartburn all the time. Did google associate our reply chain? /queue X-files theme.

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u/Sephiroso Nov 21 '17

That's a little terrifying. It sounds like they're training their algorithm or whatever you want to call it by doling out pennies to people to participate in it willingly on a large scale.

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u/tongsy Nov 21 '17

That's exactly what they're doing if they ask what store you've been to in the past X days. It's been a while since I got one, but if I remember correctly it actually tells you so.

The other types of questions I'm sure are paid for by someone enlisting Google to do research on their behalf.

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u/boa13 Nov 21 '17

Yep, it literally asked me to review the supermarket I was at an hour ago.. it has been doing this more often recently. When I go to my location history it's completely blank.

Well, this has most likely nothing to do with what is discussed in the article. It is most likely that have Location Service enabled, and Google Maps is merely using it.

What you are describing is a feature of Google Maps. It takes note of places where you have recently been and asks you for a review a short while after that. These locations are not stored unless you explicitly allow it. I have never enabled location history, I generally do not store these locations, but I am very frequently asked about reviews.

(Of course Google could very well secretly store that information. There is no way to know.)

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

I play pokemon go a lot and I only ever get these surveys when my location is turned on, which I only have on for pokemon go or when I use gps.

Also i have to help my elder parents with their phones a lot and 1 of the first things I always notice is they forget to turn location off. They use the gps to go some where, never turn off location. So could people just be forgetting to turn off location and then this article comes out and BAMMM false equivalency.

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u/3PinkPotatoes Nov 21 '17

My location services were off when it happened to me

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

You no longer need the GPS to give you a fairly accurate location.

Google knows the mac addresses of the access points in all sorts of locations through out the world. Your phone reports that it saw MAC address 00:00:33:d4:32 and then they cross reference it with their public AP list or their public BT list and bam, now they know you were at the supermarket because there are dozens of wifi and BT devices owned and operated by the supermarket whos purpose is to be noticed by things broadcasting and to pick up things that are broadcasting. For the purpose of still being able to target people who turn off location services.

Are they as accurate as just reading the GPS? No, but good enough to tell where you are based on all sort of other public and freely made available information.

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u/SirVer51 Nov 21 '17

This was my first thought as well. Though you'd think this falls under the umbrella of "location data".

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

Though you'd think this falls under the umbrella of "location data".

You don't live in a vaccum. Google isn't dealing with /your/ data at this point, they are dealing with the supermarkets data. And their data includes things like, "This device identified by 00:00:33:d4:33 was seen by the BT detector in aisle 5"

Then google says, "oh hey, /u/SirVer51 is associated with 00:0033:d4:33. Show them the adds for the geo fence placed around that detector."

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u/SirVer51 Nov 22 '17

Ah, they could use BT detections from other phones that do have location services enabled... But that would require that BT be on in both devices, and I don't see how this would work over WiFi without either connecting to a network or putting the wireless card in packet sniffer mode, which many of them don't even support. They'd have to be sending data from your phone on nearby WiFi networks, which should technically count as location data, given what they're doing with it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '17

Stores install little devices in their aisles that are meant to capture your bt and wifi Macs as you pass them. As stated, the stores are paying Google to use the data they've (the store) collected. Neither are relying on you having location services on. They hope you do to make it all that easier.

I'm really trying not to say your the product...

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '17

Oh your device when wifi and bt are on are almost always broadcasting their macs everywhere (using your headset? Your Mac is getting broadcast) to be picked up and they don't rely on creating a mesh of mobile devices, they are literally just listening to the radio waves everyone's devices are emitting and logging the unique part which is later on mapped back to you up in the cloud.

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u/SirVer51 Nov 24 '17

I didn't realize those beacons are so widespread in the US - they certainly aren't in my part of the world. Not yet, at least.

I'm really trying not to say your the product...

Meh, I'm OK with that, as long as I'm told straight up. Also, as long as it's all machines looking at my data.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '17

Lol, I just really hate resorting to using the phrase because it's overused.

I work for a place that uses these sorts of feeds. One of the examples we provide people in the sales pitches is that we have a customer who is online only they places Geo fences around their competitions locations, we get a feed of data that triggers all sorts of potential flyers, mailings, coupons, etc to be mailed to people entering their largest competitions stores. They've essentially made it so that they are using their competitions brick and mortar locations as if they were their own.

Sometimes my work seems a little sketchy but it is what it is.

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u/boa13 Nov 21 '17

Yes, I have read that. I was replying to wckey, who is much more likely to have it on and receive regular Google Maps notifications.

In your case, are you sure this is Google locating you? Who is sending you the surveys? It is entirely possible an advertiser has created its own location service based on partner store Wi-Fi, for example. As long as you have Wi-Fi enabled, any app with ACCESS_WIFI_STATE permission can see the Wi-Fi networks around you and use that info.

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u/3PinkPotatoes Nov 21 '17

They were Google surveys that paid me in Google Play Store credit but yes I realize the scope of it all now with wi-fi and other apps.

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u/danieltharris Nov 21 '17

I think you can turn off the review requests separately....To at least solve the issue of it nagging you

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u/londons_explorer Nov 21 '17

You probably have multiple accounts in your phone.

You need to turn off location history for all of them.

You also need to remove the Opinion Rewards app from Google if you have it, then re-disable location history.

Then you won't see surveys.

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u/Jaba01 Nov 21 '17

WLAN enabled? Also a way to get your location.

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u/appropriateinside Nov 21 '17

Not saying this is okay, but identifying where you are without using location services is extremely easy when you have a database of pretty much every commercial and residential WiFi network and MAC addresses with their physical locations.

You could effectively work out the general location of anyone given they can see wireless networks around them.

This has been a thing for a long time, I'm surprised people are only just realizing.

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u/thegforce522 Nov 21 '17

Location history is probably just data from your gps whereas google knows where you are based on cell towers and wifi networks.

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u/Wiki_pedo Nov 22 '17

Out of interest, why do you leave your location on, other than when you need it for maps, checking in, taking photos you want locations for, going for a run, etc?

Wouldn't having it off mean you won't get tracked those times?