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Comment by joshfraser | Hacker News Reader

Google tracks your exact location every few seconds. They know which stores you visit, which restaurants you frequent, which friends you spend the most time with, how often you go to the gym, who you're sleeping with and much more. The targeted advertising and surveillance capabilities that are possible as a result of this level of data collection are absolutely terrifying.

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>surveillance capabilities that are possible as a result of this level of data collection are absolutely terrifying.

... and they share this data with the police and then some innocent people get entangled in this mess.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-loc...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorv...

Is this assuming you have GPS on all the time or are you saying they're actively tracking everyone's locations using other means as well?

Google does not rely solely (or even primarily) on GPS for its location tracking. It also uses methods like triangulating based on what WiFi APs your device can see.

source please?

Any Android phone with semi-recent Android version.

Here's the disclaimer from my phone: "Location may use sources like GPS, Wi-Fi, mobile networks, and sensors to help estimate your device's location. Google may collection location data periodically and use this data in an anonymous way to improve location accuracy and location-based services."

They have had similar-worded ones for a while now.

IIRC basically if the phone has GPS enabled it'll upload the list of visible APs from that location, so they can use that as an estimate for when a phone without GPS is nearby.

Yes. They publish that online, too, as part of their privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

All of this has been well-known for years, and Google doesn't hide it (quite the opposite, this is a feature). Location tracking is done through three primary methods: GPS, triangulation from nearby WiFI APs, and triangulation based on what cell towers the device can see.

I recommend spending a little time searching the web and Google's Android developer pages for more, but here's a Quartz article that gives a decent overview: https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...

If you're interested in being able to find your location under the most possible circumstances, you can't rely just on GPS because there are so many situations where GPS won't work.

Previous discussion on companies tracking location using abilities outside of software permissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684

What evidence is your statement based on? On iPhone Google Maps only has access to your location while the app is in use, that means either when A) the app is open or B) it's in the background and there is a blue background around the clock indicating the map is in use.

Check out https://www.google.com/maps/timeline to see what positions they have saved.

That doesn't list who you're sleeping with. Their point was that GP was exaggerating.

If two people have their phones in the same room every night, I think Google can make presumptions on the situation.

That they live in the same high rise? That they're roommates? Again, this is further to GP's point about exaggeration.

They can easily obtain the SSID of the network they are at and that's it. Or scrape the Uber receipt from relevant gmail accounts the morning after with the appropriate time stamps. It's trivial with a reasonable degree of confidence to deduce it.

Because roommates don't share the same wifi? Or friends crash on each others couches and take an uber the next day? What's next, are you going to say the Nest cam is watching them in the bedroom? Again, this is all hyperbole.

Welcome to 2014 http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/blog/ubers-deleted-rides-of-gl...

I'm not claiming Google does this, I'm claiming this is very trivial. Of course it will be probabilistic so you can claim something with 95% chance of being true. That's good enough for advertising purposes or just to be put in a box called 'likely to have a one night stand'.

And it's still not enough.

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