It does have a bug though, if the place you visited changes its name, your history will say you visited $NEW_PLACE instead of $OLD_PLACE.
So if you went to an e.g. Hilton in Berlin in 2018, and in the meantime they shut down/move, and some companies (let's say Facebook) set up offices in the former hotel, if you look in your history, it will say you spent the nights in Facebook offices in Berlin..
Out of curiosity, what do you use it for? I turned mine off after learning about how Google gives the info to police, and the only thing I miss is being able to set my home location in Google Maps.
I basically use it as a type of diary. Sometimes the use is just remembering what I did on a particular day for nostalgia purposes, other times it's practical. Couldn't remember when exactly I bought something (but it was a shop I don't go to often) so had a look on my timeline and found the date and claimed on a warranty.
It also gives you data you can look at when analysing your life - e.g. how often I go to a friends, how long I spend walking in a week, how fast particular routes are to work, etc. When I used to fill in timesheets it was an easy record of what time I got to work each day. There's a fairly basic nerdy pleasure from having these facts available. Yes, I could collect this information manually and keep these records myself but that is quite a lot of work which I'd prefer spend doing other things.
I've also used it to piece together the previous night after getting blackout drunk in a foreign city.
I think so, too. I imagine it's the same with opting-out of "Location History" - you opt-out of seeing the log, not out of locations actually being logged.
It would be cool if there were a way for Google to prove (maybe cryptographically?) the absence of some data on their servers, so that I could verify that my location data has actually been deleted.
I don't think they have the balls to pull something like that.
If a manager suggest this in a meeting, the legal folks will eat him alive. If it comes from higher upps, then someone will leak this and that will be the end of Google.
More likely it will get annonomised and feed into since ML. But it would be super illegal to do what you're describing and with as many employees as Google has someone would notice and leak that.
What I really want is the ability to turn on GPS without allowing Google to see any data, not even "to improve our services" which is legal speak for "it's ours now, we can do whatever we want".
I am pretty sure Google is not following GDPR in this regard. You cannot force people give you data just because they provide an unrelated service (search) on the same platform.
Edit: to clarify, I want to remove Google maps, install Here or Bing maps it whatever and that should be enough to not send a single positioning sample to Google.
GPS is so entangled in the OS that as soon as you enable it ten different Google services will record and send your positioning data to different departments at google. But I have ZERO interest in giving anyone my location. I don't care what cool service you have, not interested sorry.
The problem is that as soon as you _enable_ GPS on Android a dialog is shown telling you Google will use your data. If you don't agree, GPS will be turned back off.
(This by itself is a clear GDPR violation, by the way)
That compromises your security (and therefore privacy) by not taking advantage of the secure HARDWARE that Google offers,
which is incredible when decoupled from their proprietary spyware and just used with Android Open Source Project (AOSP), or a variant, like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS.
Those only send your location to Google when they are used, unlike AGPS, which sends it whenever any app looks up location data. GGP comment complained about the latter, which is easy to turn off on Android and impossible to turn off on iOS.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 73.3 ms ] threadSo if you went to an e.g. Hilton in Berlin in 2018, and in the meantime they shut down/move, and some companies (let's say Facebook) set up offices in the former hotel, if you look in your history, it will say you spent the nights in Facebook offices in Berlin..
That’s a rookie mistake!
OwnTracks, Traccar, etc - lots more on F-Droid.
Some specific feature? The data capture?
What's the actual issue?
Also: the proprietary version will usually be a step or two of "new features that may or may not be important" ahead of the FOSS offerings.
It also gives you data you can look at when analysing your life - e.g. how often I go to a friends, how long I spend walking in a week, how fast particular routes are to work, etc. When I used to fill in timesheets it was an easy record of what time I got to work each day. There's a fairly basic nerdy pleasure from having these facts available. Yes, I could collect this information manually and keep these records myself but that is quite a lot of work which I'd prefer spend doing other things.
I've also used it to piece together the previous night after getting blackout drunk in a foreign city.
It would be cool if there were a way for Google to prove (maybe cryptographically?) the absence of some data on their servers, so that I could verify that my location data has actually been deleted.
If a manager suggest this in a meeting, the legal folks will eat him alive. If it comes from higher upps, then someone will leak this and that will be the end of Google.
I am pretty sure Google is not following GDPR in this regard. You cannot force people give you data just because they provide an unrelated service (search) on the same platform.
Edit: to clarify, I want to remove Google maps, install Here or Bing maps it whatever and that should be enough to not send a single positioning sample to Google.
GPS is so entangled in the OS that as soon as you enable it ten different Google services will record and send your positioning data to different departments at google. But I have ZERO interest in giving anyone my location. I don't care what cool service you have, not interested sorry.
The problem is that as soon as you _enable_ GPS on Android a dialog is shown telling you Google will use your data. If you don't agree, GPS will be turned back off.
(This by itself is a clear GDPR violation, by the way)
which is incredible when decoupled from their proprietary spyware and just used with Android Open Source Project (AOSP), or a variant, like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS.
Example: security services bypass the location settings.
Google Location Accuracy claims that enhanced location data is anonymous.