Comment on Apple calls Android a 'massive tracking device'
ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world 1 year agoOnly for things that are on Google’s servers. If you have something that’s on-device police will use something like Cellbrite to access it.
The vast majority of stuff Google has on their servers isn’t really all that useful to law enforcement anyway and Google requires a search warrant before handing it over. And they generally notify the user when it happens (when legally allowed to do so). Most useful would probably be location data, but law enforcement can also get similar information from cell phone companies (who are much more carefree about handing over subscriber data).
Google and Apple are both actually kind of a pain to deal with for warrant related stuff. In my line of work, I most often see subpoenas for cell phone and social media records as those are much easier to get.
People often act like Google is just handing out user user data to the highest bidder, but that really misunderstands their profit model. They are very protective of user data. Google does not like to give it out so that only they can be the ones to profit off of the data.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Everything is on Google’s servers.
no it’s actually much worse than that
ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, I realize it’s worse than that… When did I say otherwise? I even started off the comment by stating that Apple and Google’s privacy features were made for anti-competitive reasons, not to benefit the consumer.
Your type of fear-mongering isn’t really helpful though. It just makes people feel powerless to large corporations and makes people try to address the wrong issues. It’s important to accurately state what they are collecting and how they are using that data. We spent a decade complaining about Google not respecting privacy and selling data and what we got was Google gaining even more power. Because, that wasn’t what Google was doing or their end goal.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 year ago
“People” are not powerless. You can I are powerless because “people” don’t care about the dystopian future we’re living in.
And it’s not fear-mongering, it’s the truth. Google does not require warrants.
ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What are you talking about? Google does not give law enforcement information without a warrant or valid subpoena.
support.google.com/transparencyreport/…/9713961?h…
You clearly have no idea how any of this works and are fear mongering based on sound bites you may have heard. I work in this field and I know that Google (at least in the US) won’t just hand over data without a valid warrant or subpoena. Now this can be a FISA warrant where the defendant (imo) doesn’t have proper due process rights, but it is still a court order requiring them to comply.