Source: www.schneier.com – Author: Bruce Schneier
Comments
JonKnowsNothing •
@All
re: Google Stops Collecting Location Data from Maps
The small print: Google no longer needs to collect and store the data from maps on their servers because they have been working with the NSA for a few years now on “how to ID any location on the planet without a geolocation reference attached to the image”.
Google has scraped every public image off the internet (as have others) and developed an program to catalog every detail in each image. They first select images that have a geolocation information, overlay them and build up a composite version with every detail identified in them. Next they use a images with the geolocation image stripped and “match it” up.
This is quite successful technique.
- This holiday one of the MSM ran a holiday puzzler of “Can you ID a location by….”
- A US Hunter who (illegally) shot a trophy animal across the border in Canada, was identified by the trophy photo with the dead animal with the geolocation removed, which was matched to the skyline images of the mountain range by the Canadian Wildlife Rangers. (note: How the Canadian’s located the photo is another question)
So, Google doesn’t need to keep the information on their servers, and having it on the device is easier for LEAs.
What’s on the device, stays on the device.
Clive Robinson •
@ Bruce, ALL,
You don’t need “location data” when you have time and shadows.
Anyone who has done basic astronavigation by “sun sight” or basic astronomy to locate planataey objects should have the knowledge to do this.
Back in the 1980’s a big chunk of learning to be a surveyor was learning how to very accurately fix your position using sun, planets and stars. By accurate I mean better than what started as very expensive GPS could give you a decade later[1].
The reason for the GPS inacuracy was the SA Code used to quasi-randomly purturbe the location accuracy. It did not take long for engineers to come up with systems that would strip off the effects of the SA-Code by providing an “inverse error signal”. Shortly before the start of the first gulf war the SA-Code was turned off because there was a very great shortage of MIL Spec GPS equipment due to crypto concerns (that still exist today). So troops were issued with civilian GPS receivers that also had the advantage of being inexpensive, small, light weight, and very robust, the result being the SA-Code remained turned off and the accuracy was around about ten times what it was[2].
[1] The story of civilian GPS began officially with an announcement made by then US President Ronald Reagan in 1983. Shortly after Korean Air flight 007 wandered off course and into Soviet airspace over the Kamchatka Peninsula where the Boeing 747 airliner was shot down by a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor. It is assumed killing all 269 passengers and crew on board before the aircraft crashed into the sea. One of the passangers was, United States representative Larry McDonald, making it a high priority “National Security” issue. The Soviet Union authorities went into first denial then accusation mode and two weeks later found the aircraft wreckage under the sea, it’s assumed by the “black box” locators. Having found and retreived the flight recorders the Soviet Union authorities kept this information secret.
Due to Soviet Union authorities behaviour and threats President Reagan decided to make available to all civilian aircraft the in develipment GPS system once it was completed “for the common good”. Hopefully to improve air navigation and air safety, and prevent giving Soviet Union Authorities an excuse to start a war or other actions.
[2] One upside to the SA-Code being off is spoofing becomes a lot harder as I’ve explained in the past.
Clive Robinson •
I forgot to mention why Larry Patton McDonald was such a National Security concern, and why some thought he was the sole reason the Soviet Union shot down the plane, to in effect assasinate him.
Few remember him now, but he is an object lesson in “oddity”, some say that even though he was a doctor and a Democrat he was more extream right than any other US Representative of the time or since.
How much you do or do not believe, the story with pushing of dangerous drugs, gun running and private intelligence organisations, it makes quite interesting reading,
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/02/larry-mcdonald-communists-deep-state-222726/
TimH •
“Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored directly on user devices.”
“Google itself will no longer have access to the data.”
“This also means law enforcement won’t be able to request it from Google anymore.”
This is meant to sound conforting, but there are massive gaps in the statements… a bit like charities saying that they don’t sell your data, when actually they swap donor info with other charities instead.
I want a statement that location data never leaves the phone, so it can be the only residence.
My expectation is that all location data gets passed straight on to NSA, regardless of any settings, which saves Google the expense and unwanted publicity of LEO processing. This will have to be kept a secret for natsec reasons, but LEO are well used to reconstruction to re-acquire info legally that was obtained first through other means.
The only clue we’ll get is when cases are dropped when judges insist on show ‘n’ tell of evidence trails leading to particularised suspicion, and that would make it obvious that the location DB exists.
yet another bruce •
How is Google going to collect traffic congestion data if phones do not share their location and speed? Could there be some legalistic needle threading going on? For example, perhaps Google doesn’t store historical location tracks but instead pipes them out to law enforcement organizations in real-time and it is the responsibility of LEO to log the tracks and index them.
Wannabe Tech guy •
“I want a statement that location data never leaves the phone, so it can be the only residence.”
Even if you get that statement, would you believe it? Would you trust Google,NSA, etc. How would you know?
fib •
From the article: “42 Democrats from the US House and Senate signed a letter last May addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai urging the company to stop collecting and retaining user location information.”
Still a concession, a unilateral act of mercy from a corporate giant. Why couldn’t it be simply regulated?
Too good to be true, as law enforcement is now addicted to such sources. NOt sure about the US, but in other jurisdictions LEAs could just request the entire raw stream of data and correlate using other sources – eg the cell phone infrastructure.
Anonymous •
@WTg “Would you trust Google,NSA, etc. How would you know?”
That is the crux of the biscuit.
I often contemplate what it would take for, say, Apple, to secretly be in bed with The Government, but maintain a sham image as a privacy proponent.
Could a company as powerful as Apple keep it secret? What would that take? What would it take to expose them?
If you’re a writer, there’s a story there.
Many years ago when I was in a train to a town 209km away from my normal whereabouts my android device asked me if I would allow Google to collect my geolocation data in Google maps. I allowed them to and was immediately told that if I want to be at home at the usual time I will have to take a train earlier as the train that brings me home from here is delayed. Seems like they have multiple data sources like the info which WiFi I am connected to from 9to5…
Ismar •
Is it possible that they have realised keep storing of such huge quantities of data is impossible even for them?
rgill •
Google no longer has that data to turn over
Those looking for loopholes seem to be overlooking the obvious one: “that data” refers to the data collected by Google Maps. The statement doesn’t say that Google isn’t collecting and storing (remotely) location data from other sources: other apps, the operating system itself, the firmware of Pixel phones, etc. Are they?
I’m kind of surprised at the idea, implicit in these stories, that Google Maps data is the only source of data. With these geofence warrants, have police only been getting the location data of people who had Google Maps running when they were in the locations? News reporting about these warrants made them seem much broader, like they’d produce a list of every Android user who was there.
JonKnowsNothing •
@rgill, All
re: geofence warrants
Marcy Wheeler does analysis of complex legal issues. She tracks and connects dots about many of the Dec37 group and how things are presented to the courts vs what MSM says is presented (which is mostly incorrect).
Recently she reviewed geofence warrants for some of the prominent cases based on the evidence filing.
LEAs get the information from more than one source, Google is just one of them. Mobile Service Providers can provide similar information.
- Physical location == Mobile Service Provider
- Data exchanges == Google + Apps
- Device activation == OS Mfg
As lots of people keep many apps active and installed any of those can be targeted too.
= = =
ht tps://www . emptywheel . net/
- Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties.
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Original Post URL: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/12/google-stops-collecting-location-data-from-maps.html
Category & Tags: Uncategorized,geolocation,Google,privacy – Uncategorized,geolocation,Google,privacy
