Google is watching you (even if you tell it not to)

AFTER a string of scandals, tech firms are desperate to show they take our privacy seriously.

But an investigation has revealed their claims are not all they’re cracked up to be.

It found that Google records our movements even when explicitly told not to. For example, when using the Google Maps app on iPhones and Android devices, the ‘location history’ setting can be disabled.

You might think this would stop it recording your movements. But research by the Associated Press news agency found that your location is tracked automatically in other ways. A snapshot of where you are is taken when you open the Google Maps app, regardless of the location history setting.

This sort of tracking also happens in other instances when we use Google on our phones. Minute-by-minute tracking carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects.

Computer science experts at Princeton University in the US confirmed the findings.

Another way in which our locations are tracked is through automatic daily weather updates on Android phones, which identify roughly where the user is. Worryingly, some internet searches that have nothing to do with location, such as ‘chocolate chip cookies’, pinpoint your whereabouts accurate to the square foot. This is then saved to the user’s Google account, which the company has access to.

The privacy issue affects two billion users of devices that run Google’s Android operating software and hundreds of millions of iPhone users who use Google for maps or searches.

Jonathan Mayer, a Princeton computer scientist, said: ‘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. That seems like a pretty straightforward position to have.’ Critics say tracking locations helps the tech giant boost advertising revenue.

Google insisted it has been perfectly clear. It said: ‘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.’ It said users could disable other location trackers with the ‘web and app activity’ setting.

The report comes after a series of recent privacy scandals. In March, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica were involved in a scandal in which data was harvested from 50million profiles without users’ consent. And in June it emerged that Dixons Carphone delayed informing 10million customers of a data breach.