
Google’s Sensorvault Is a Boon for Law Enforcement - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorvault-location-tracking.html
======
fencepost
Location history was both surprisingly good and surprisingly bad in the past,
but the last few times I looked it was less impressive.

On the good side it used to be remarkably accurate at identifying and tracking
stops along with routes I had driven. At the same time it would have
occasional astonishing jumps such as the 15 minutes I once spent in South
Korea during the middle of the day.

At some point they appeared to dumb it down pretty radically and it would no
longer even recognize that I had been at a location even when I had been there
for hours.

These days I use a separate unfortunately discontinued app for tracking
location and uploading to my own cloud storage a few times a day.

I've given up on Google not being evil, but it might be nice if they could
avoid being so freaking creepy.

~~~
MetalGuru
Can I ask why you keep your own location history?

~~~
cmroanirgo
I've used it in the past when travelling abroad so family members can keep
track of where I am. Like the OP, I don't use google, because of the
creepiness of it all, but hosted my own as uploaded kml files. I set up a GPS
logger to save my pos every 1/2 hour or so to keep battery usage light.

~~~
weinzierl
Which GPS logger do you use? I tried a few, but they were all a pain. I'm
primarily interested in tagging photos of my cameras that don't have their own
GPS.

~~~
fencepost
If you can find an apk I'm using Backitude (gaugler.backitude), notable for
using location 'steals' when some other app gets location rather than directly
querying on its own. I just have it write to a kml file locally, and another
program syncs that folder to cloud storage 2x daily.

It's also capable of pinging a url with location data if you prefer.

Edit: this may be interesting from someone else actively using it for their
own tracking and reporting (includes parsing scripts)
[https://petermolnar.net/location-tracking-without-
server/](https://petermolnar.net/location-tracking-without-server/)

------
macintux
There’s active discussion on another NYT piece; this seems to be a dupe in
spirit if not in fact.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19653647](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19653647)

------
jgalt212
Under Pichai, Google is doing everything it can to.

A. make money because that's the most important thing (e.g. China population
surveillance projects).

B. Keep the trust busters at bay by making itself useful to the government any
way it can (e.g. this).

~~~
1024core
He's an MBA, and not a techie. All he knows is how to strip-mine a company to
make Wall Street happy. These people all play from the same playbook: maximize
profits and minimize expenses per quarter.

Google shows so many more ads today than 3 years ago. It's all Pichai's doing.

~~~
wheelerwj
Please, lets not blame the business people. Both of the worlds largest
surveillance and ad companies were founded and built by "techies".

Your chosen education has nothing to do with how big of a douche bag you chose
to be.

~~~
drewm1980
Is isn't that what you do when you choose your education? I chose engineering
because it is a nice compromise between wealth and douchiness.

------
bookofjoe
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Google%E2%80%99s%20Sensorvault...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Google%E2%80%99s%20Sensorvault%20Is%20a%20Boon%20for%20Law%20Enforcement.%20This%20Is%20How%20It%20Works&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

------
NotSammyHagar
I have had Android devices for many years and this issue makes me want to
seriously consider an is device. If apple really has nothing like this bank of
locations stored and centrally searchable, why would anyone who cares be okay
with Android? I feel like I need more info about Apple's security reliability.

~~~
shittyadmin
Most of this can be disabled simply by disabling Location History. Apple is
definitely better for not keeping this kind of thing - however even with an
Apple or Librem device, your carrier will store your location and hand it off
to law enforcement more readily than even Google would, so keep that in mind.

Being concerned about your location privacy and having a connected cell phone
in your possession at all times are mutually exclusive ideas with the current
state of things. Short of major legal changes it will not be possible.

~~~
propogandist
This is false.

This is from congressional testimony in the past month that hasn't gotten
virtually any coverage from the traditional media outlets:

>Hawley pointed out on Tuesday that a user's location is sent to Google
hundreds of times a day, even when the phone is not in use. In fact, Hawley
said, a user's location is tracked "every four minutes, or 14 times an hour,
roughly 340 times during a 24-hour period," even when the phone is not in use.

>DeVries confessed that "location information is absolutely core to making a
mobile phone work the way that you want it to work." He said that Google has
an "optional service" called Location History that is opt-in and "can collect
location over time when people turn that on."

>"But Google collects geolocation data even if Location History is turned off,
correct?" Hawley pressed.

>"Yes, senator, it can in order to operate other services—"

Google's privacy head was passing off the location data harvesting as
something that is necessary for the phone to function, which is untrue. They
are using the devices to surveil on people, which, among other things, allows
intelligence agencies to outsource an important task.

[https://pjmedia.com/trending/google-tracks-you-even-when-
loc...](https://pjmedia.com/trending/google-tracks-you-even-when-loc..).

The actual hearing itself:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwyuCtbK3qw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwyuCtbK3qw)

~~~
gscott
Also your phone connects to up to 7+ cell towers at once giving good location
history to AT&T who then sells your location history as a product to law
enforcement. We are tracked multiple ways. Logging into Gmail gives your ip
and a less precise but overall description of where you are, etc.

------
rlanday
> The headquarters of Google in Manhattan.

More quality New York-centrism from The New York Times :P

~~~
aaronharnly
I think that's an accurate (enough) caption for the photo, which is a picture
of a thing that says "Google" \-- ie it's the headquarters in Manhattan; which
is not the world headquarters.

> Google, which already employs about 7,000 in the city, has its New York
> headquarters at 111 Eighth Avenue, one of the city’s largest buildings that
> it bought in 2010.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-new-
york/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-new-york/google-
plans-to-expand-office-space-in-new-york-city-wsj-idUSKCN1ND083)

> Google's current New York Headquarters is in the former Port Authority of
> New York building. It occupies an entire long city block between 8th and 9th
> Avenues and between 15th and 16th Streets.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/google-
announces...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/google-announces-
major-expansion-in-new-york-city/)

~~~
bookofjoe
From the Reuters story: "Google also plans to expand its existing property at
Chelsea Market by about 300,000 square feet, WSJ said citing people briefed
with the matter." Off-topic: The Chelsea Market location is where I had to go
to pick up my Google Glass in June 2013. Early adopters
("Explorers":[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass))
had to go to Google offices in LA, SF, or NYC to get them and have them fitted
and calibrated. Later, when Google expanded their availability to the general
public, they simply shipped them to your home or office like any other
electronic device. "... either a benefit or a
hazard":[https://youtu.be/o_AXOjlPF0Y](https://youtu.be/o_AXOjlPF0Y)

------
asdfasgasdgasdg
One trope on this site that seems to always come up in this discussion is the
presumption that if it's good for law enforcement it's a bad thing. But IMO
that's not really how it works. Things are often good or bad depending on how
they are used. If this is being used to target dissidents, that's bad. If this
is being used to catch rapists and murderers, that's good, provided that their
rights aren't being violated.

~~~
clouddrover
I don't want to be under constant surveillance. I don't want to be monitored
all day, every day. I don't want to be tagged, tracked, and catalogued like an
animal.

It doesn't suit me.

~~~
ars
Then don't turn it on. It's completely optional.

~~~
dmix
It's not like it's a button you can press to "turn it off". Google's
smartphone which dominates the market and has billions of users is funded by a
company whose whole business model is tracking + targeting users using the
data they provide.

Rooting and install another Android OS is no easy task for a normie and comes
with it's own maintenance baggage. And even then you have to install Google's
proprietary software to even use the App Store.

A phone without the app store is a no-go for 99% of people.

The solution is allow the customers the option to "turn it on" (especially
after they pay $300-900 for a phone) rather than being omnipresent.

~~~
deadmutex
The article seems to contradict your statement:

"Location History is not on by default. Google prompts users to enable it when
they are setting up certain services — traffic alerts in Google Maps, for
example, or group images tied to location in Google Photos.'

~~~
kuzehanka
Google is tracking your location regardless of what settings you toggle how.
They have been forced to admit that much.

[https://thehill.com/policy/technology/433742-google-takes-
he...](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/433742-google-takes-heat-over-
location-tracking-in-privacy-debate)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqw81WF_eqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqw81WF_eqw)

~~~
shittyadmin
What they're referring to in that article is that when you use Google Maps and
as you're following driving directions, their servers get your location so
they can compute your route and offer you better routes and notifications
about accidents and such along the way. That part I feel I signed up for and
is perfectly fine.

It's been stretched by media to make it sound nefarious, but no one has shown
that they're actually sending location data when history is disabled and
you're not using maps.

~~~
kuzehanka
No, what they're referring to is that if you use an android phone, either with
a sim card or with google services authenticated, they are are recording the
location of the phone to provide 'services' such as phone calling and play
store access.

The only thing location history toggles is whether your location data is
branched off to the location history product line. It does not toggle the
existence of that data or the fact that it's archived at several other points.

Take the time to watch the congress hearing and note the very carefully worded
answers and why they are worded that way.

~~~
shittyadmin
It was based on his wording that I drew my conclusions, they provide many
services outside of location history which do mandate on demand location data,
you know? Do you have any evidence that they're still doing periodic location
after location history is disabled? I had heard concerns but it seemed they
were exaggerated last I checked. Should be pretty obvious in RE if that's
true.

Ultimately though, you're still not getting around being tracked, your cell
provider collects that location data even if Google doesn't. Just having a
cell phone and a SIM puts you in a pretty awful state privacy wise.

~~~
kuzehanka
LMGFY

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/13/google-
lo...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/13/google-location-
tracking-android-iphone-mobile)

~~~
shittyadmin
From your linked article:

> For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open
> its Maps app

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. In order to download
map tiles around you, show nearby stuff, traffic, etc they need to know where
you are. So yes, that means they get your location.

But that has nothing to do with the sort of periodic background location
reporting used in Location History that people are concerned about. Disabling
Location History and not using Maps or other Google location based apps or
APIs means they won't get your location.

Also note that there's no mention of play store access, phone calls or any
other sorts of usages which seem like they shouldn't ask for location in that
article.

They make a bit of a big deal about searching for "chocolate chip cookies" not
requiring localized results, but from a technical perspective I think it's
obvious that they just send it with the request regardless, they don't know .
Trivial to disable if you don't want that though. In fact, both this an the
Maps example will happen even on iOS devices as the article points out.

When I said I found those claims exaggerated last time I looked into it, this
is exactly what I meant. They must get a lot of clicks by making this stuff
out to be more nefarious.

~~~
kuzehanka
> Disabling Location History and not using Maps or other Google location based
> apps or APIs means they won't get your location.

Which is impossible unless you don't use the phone at all, hence the 3 hour
long congressional hearing[1]. Turn off location history, turn off location
services, it doesn't matter, your location tracks are being logged.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue about since you seem agree with the
premise. You think the news outlets exaggerated the fact that Google grossly
underplayed the language around their always-on tracking and mislead hundreds
of millions of users into thinking they're not being tracked when they in fact
were? Okay then.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfbTbPEEJxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfbTbPEEJxI)

~~~
shittyadmin
What you seem to be saying is that they're sending location data periodically
even after disabling location history. That I believe is false. Any location
sending after that is by user or app demand.

Achieving this on an Android device isn't impossible by any means: deny
location to all apps and those apps won't be able to call the Google Fused
Location API. If you want location without using Google's API, allow only
select apps which use direct on-device GPS access, it's readily available in
the Android API without the need to pull in the Google Play Location Services
package.

------
lettergram
This is one of the reasons I've switched to Apple, turned off all my location
services, use various VPNs, and often leave my phone at home (or use my
secondary work device).

Its astonishing what companies and law enforcement can do. For instance,
people are concerned with some of Trump's laws/actions already. Why would we
want to give him or anyone in such a position the ability to sweep up whole
populations based on being near an event. It goes beyond that obviously,
Google can predict movement and predict interests, even what you'll say at
this point.

Eventually, law enforcement will be issuing a warrant on the model which
predicts/represents you as well.

~~~
duskwuff
Since someone is probably going to mention it:

Yes, iOS has a superficially similar feature called Significant Locations [1].

No, it doesn't work anything like Sensorvault. Significant Locations are
collected and stored locally on the device. They are only used to provide
relevant suggestions to the user of the device (e.g, to suggest Maps
destinations based on where the user frequently travels), not for advertising
or analytics.

[1]: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT207056)

~~~
povertyworld
I got a kick out of Significant Locations when someone told me about it. It
says I go to a liquor store every night at 7pm. Of course, this is the corner
store on my block, but without context it looks like I drink a lot of beer. It
didn't really bother me enough to turn it off.

