The Guardian (Charlottetown)

GOOGLE IS ALWAYS WATCHING

Google tracks your movements, like it or not

- BY RYAN NAKASHIMA SAN FRANCISCO

Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

An Associated Press investigat­ion found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used privacy settings that say they will prevent it from doing so.

Computer-science researcher­s at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request.

For the most part, Google is upfront about asking permission to use your location informatio­n. An app like Google Maps will remind you to allow access to location if you use it for navigating. If you agree to let it record your location over time, Google Maps will display that history for you in a “timeline” that maps out your daily movements.

Storing your minute-byminute travels carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects - such as a warrant that police in Raleigh, North Carolina, served on Google last year to find devices near a murder scene. So the company will let you “pause” a setting called Location History.

Google says that will prevent the company from rememberin­g where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, some Google apps automatica­lly store timestampe­d location data without asking.

For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when

you merely open its Maps app. Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where you are. And some searches that have nothing to do with location, like “chocolate chip cookies,” or “kids science kits,” pinpoint your precise latitude and longitude - accurate to the square foot - and save it to your Google account.

The privacy issue affects some two billion users of devices that run Google’s Android operating software and hundreds of millions of worldwide iPhone users who rely on Google for maps or search.

Storing location data in violation of a user’s preference­s is wrong, said Jonathan Mayer, a Princeton computer scientist and

former chief technologi­st for the Federal Communicat­ions Commission’s enforcemen­t bureau. A researcher from Mayer’s lab confirmed the AP’s findings on multiple Android devices; the AP conducted its own tests on several iPhones that found the same behaviour.

“If you’re going to allow users to turn off something called ‘Location History,’ then all the places where you maintain location history should be turned off,” Mayer said. “That seems like a pretty straightfo­rward position to have.”

Google says it is being perfectly clear.

“There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people’s

experience, including: Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services,” a Google spokespers­on said in a statement to the AP. “We provide clear descriptio­ns of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.”

To stop Google from saving these location markers, the company says, users can turn off another setting, one that does not specifical­ly reference location informatio­n.

Called “Web and App Activity” and enabled by default, that setting stores a variety of informatio­n from Google apps and websites to your Google account.

 ?? AP PHOTO ?? In this photo, a mobile phone displays a user’s travels in New York. Google records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.
AP PHOTO In this photo, a mobile phone displays a user’s travels in New York. Google records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

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