Thoughts on Google turning every device into a scanner for Find My Device?
Thoughts on Google turning every device into a scanner for Find My Device?
Received notice of a change to the service in my inbox today. Seems icky to me.
Devices in the network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items. If other devices detect your items, they’ll securely send the locations where the items were detected to Find My Device. Your Android devices will do the same to help others find their offline items when detected nearby
Your devices’ locations will be encrypted using the PIN, pattern, or password for your Android devices. They can only be seen by you and those you share your devices with in Find My Device. They will not be visible to Google or used for other purposes.
ETA: here's the link to opt out: opt out of the network
This is what apple has done for years but nobody complainted
You at least know your paying for it with apple. Googles customers won't be the ones using this service.
I'm driven by convenience, FOMO, and peer pressure, so go ahead and destroy my privacy and security, Google!
Snark aside, it seems like a really neat useful little idea that will 100% be used for some creepy corporate shit.
We can already tell you the age, gender, hobbies, kinks, frequently visited spots and how long they stay there, who goes with them and who they meet, what they think about, when they go to sleep, but wouldn't you also like to know where they are and who they're near when their devices are offline with Bluetooth on? We can do that now too! Creepy? No! They think it's so they can [checks notes] find their device even if its offline.
-Google probably
This is probably an unpopular opinion especially on this sub and something that will probably never happen realistically with the way the world is going but it is an extremely cool feature. If this was not done by companys that already harvest data etc and was as private as something like this can be such as your device communication to another device has a uuid that does not tie back to "you" if that makes sense or something not sure. Because there are some use cases that could be extremely good such as the one comment here about stalkers etc.
I agree with this and I’m glad we have graphene OS at the same time for the moments when I no longer want this to be the default option.
I hope to see more reasonable takes like this - weighted with reality, not just reinforcing what people want to hear.
This is how Tile works as well. Not sure what their data harvesting policies are.
A few days ago my wife's phone said there was an unknown airtag with her. It turned out to be an airtag in a kids friend backpack but for once it seemed like Google was looking out for the best interest of someone. It could have easily been a stalker trying to find where we lived.
I can only imagine how often teacher's phone light up for these.
For AirTags, those notifications should only start if:
- The AirTag has not been with his owner for more than 4 hours
- The AirTag is moving
- The AirTag persistently stays close to another device that isn’t associated with the AirTag owners Apple ID
For Teachers this shouldn’t be an issue unless their students have tecb challenged parent. AirTags arent meant for tracking kids. If it’s their AirTag, they are with them and the alarm won’t trigger. If they have a shared AirTag (possible since iOS 17) they are with theyr own AirTag and the alarm won’t trigger. If they got one that is ONLY registered to their parents, then it will trigger the Anti Stalking feature and those parents should be educated on their problematic use of an AirTag.
Those kids should have an Apple Watch, all the tracking options for parents, none of the hassle of stalking alerts. Or they now just use a shared AirTag which they would then also need to have an Apple ID enabled device with them. So the watch is usually the more afordable and versatile option.
There's a FOSS app for anyone who wants this functionality without Google
100% same as apple for their similar service and tag device
If you cared about privacy you wouldn’t be using any Google products.
Quite true. As a Google Fi subscriber since 2015, I still rely on them for that service, but I've weaned off everything else to the extent that I can. There was a time that I thought the value outweighed the spying, but its impossible for me to maintain that delusion now.
We're on the same boat with Fi. I only use it because it's the only service I know about that I can pause and not have to pay when I'm not in the US. I don't live in the US, but I but do have to travel there very frequently, so it's an acceptable trade-off for me. And it works perfectly fine on GrapheneOS even With GMS off.
It's pretty much the same thing that 'tile' does, it's scary that they do this as an opt-out though. Having that as a system level function effectively means they can enable or disable it at will without having to have a separate app.
One more bug to sort out with notifications and I'm full time onto GraphineOS.
I was able to opt out of this by going into settings.
The email has a link to opt out too.
Here it is for anyone else interested: opt out of the network
Good! Android people ought to have the same tag tracking quality as iOS ppl.
Bingo!
Sure wish it didn't use Bluetooth. That's kind of the extent of my thoughts on it.
To bad I don't use Google
What is a Google?
Jail.