Android knows where you are, even if you have already turned off geo-localization for a long time. A news release from the technology giant indicates that Google has been storing antenna tower locations in the vicinity of Android phones since early 2017. The company immediately adds that it has not finally found any usefulness in this kind of information and has therefore interrupted this practice.
How does it work?
When an Android mobile device was passing near an antenna tower, it contacted Google's servers to report the location of the latter. This was also done even if the user had disabled the location data in the operating system, as written in the Quartz online magazine. Google would have been able to know the location of the users at any time. According to the company itself, this practice was part of an experiment aimed at improving the sending of messages via mobile networks. It now ensures that it has not used or maintained this information and that Android has in the meantime been adapted to no longer transfer the data relating to the pylons in question.
The reason that the location data was also transferred, even if the users had disabled them, was inherent, according to Quartz, to the service that was transferring them. Antenna towers were in fact in contact with Firebase Cloud of Android, an element that supports text messages and notifications. However, this element is independent of the ' location data ' that the user can disable, and that are mostly associated with Google Maps. It was therefore not possible to disable Firebase's messages even if the user knew they existed.
Street View
It is in the meantime the second time that Google sees itself forced to reveal to the world that it really knows where you are everywhere and always. Previously, she had recognized that Street View cars had collected between 2007 and 2010 all the names of the WiFi networks and the MAC addresses of the routers they encountered while circulating. In the years that followed, the company was the subject of some serious warnings for this kind of practice, as well as a few million euros of fines from several organizations in charge of the respect of privacy in the world.
It is not yet known whether these new confessions will also result in fines.
How does it work?
When an Android mobile device was passing near an antenna tower, it contacted Google's servers to report the location of the latter. This was also done even if the user had disabled the location data in the operating system, as written in the Quartz online magazine. Google would have been able to know the location of the users at any time. According to the company itself, this practice was part of an experiment aimed at improving the sending of messages via mobile networks. It now ensures that it has not used or maintained this information and that Android has in the meantime been adapted to no longer transfer the data relating to the pylons in question.
The reason that the location data was also transferred, even if the users had disabled them, was inherent, according to Quartz, to the service that was transferring them. Antenna towers were in fact in contact with Firebase Cloud of Android, an element that supports text messages and notifications. However, this element is independent of the ' location data ' that the user can disable, and that are mostly associated with Google Maps. It was therefore not possible to disable Firebase's messages even if the user knew they existed.
Street View
It is in the meantime the second time that Google sees itself forced to reveal to the world that it really knows where you are everywhere and always. Previously, she had recognized that Street View cars had collected between 2007 and 2010 all the names of the WiFi networks and the MAC addresses of the routers they encountered while circulating. In the years that followed, the company was the subject of some serious warnings for this kind of practice, as well as a few million euros of fines from several organizations in charge of the respect of privacy in the world.
It is not yet known whether these new confessions will also result in fines.
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