Google to publish user location data to help govts tackle virus

France24 ^ | April 3, 2020

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Paris (AFP) - Google will publish location data from its users around the world from Friday to allow governments to gauge the effectiveness of social distancing measures put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the tech giant said.

The reports on users' movements in 131 countries will be made available on a special website and will "chart movement trends over time by geography," according to a post on one of the company's blogs.

Trends will be display "a percentage point increase or decrease in visits" to locations like parks, shops, homes and places of work, not "the absolute number of visits," said the post, signed by Jen Fitzpatrick, who leads Google Maps, and the company's chief health officer Karen DeSalvo.

"We hope these reports will help support decisions about how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic," they said.

In Europe and the United States, technology firms have begun sharing "anonymised" smartphone data to better track the outbreak.

Even privacy-loving Germany is considering using a smartphone app to help manage the spread of the disease.

But activists say authoritarian regimes are using the coronavirus as a pretext to suppress independent speech and increase surveillance.

And in liberal democracies, others fear widespread data harvesting and intrusion could bring lasting harm to privacy and digital rights.

[Karliner]

Is this the same program Google just sold to China for tracking last year?

[jrestrepo]

Why do you think that they can track you when it is turned off?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“You need to pull the batteries if you actually want it off. But they thought of that and made the batteries inaccessible.”

I still have a flip-phone (*GASP*) and every time I drop it - which is pretty much daily - the battery falls right out!

I’m pretty sure whoever is spying on me is having one hulluvatime figuring out what I’m up to. *SMIRK* :)

(Though, they can ALWAYS find me here at FR, if they really need me. The DU pukes spy on me here a LOT!)

[BradyLS]

“Google to publish user location data to, uh, help governments, er...tackle the virus! Yeah! They’re gonna give the ol’ one-two to the C’rona’! That’s the ticket!”

[tomkat]

             

[tomkat]

Fortunately, you've 'developed a robust post-apocalyptic skill set'   ;-)

[upchuck]

My understanding is that even when you turn your phone “off,” it’s not really off. This is anecdotal on my part. Could be wrong.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I have!

In fact, I spent most of the day out ‘robusting’ in my garden and greenhouse! Yay! :)

[refreshed]

Hey! Great idea! This way they know where to concentrate the resources to prevent us from moving around too much! After all, if you are not cowering under your bed right now, you are the devil incarnate. I guess they will see me going to church tomorrow (safely for all of you who are concerned). Have a great Lord’s day!

[MayflowerMadam]

“Why do you think that they can track you when it is turned off?”

They’ve been able to do that for a long time. A few years ago someone — I think it was Stossel, but not sure — did an expose on this. Cell turned off, and I think that the battery gone, later Google provided a printout of every place the person had gone. It even made assumptions that the person had stepped out of the car at a specific time. (It was true; he had.) Some other gizmo in the phone does this.

[max americana]

The last burner phone I had was virgin mobile. It eas a flip phone you can buy at 711 for 7 bucks.

Now you cant escape Google because they own droid and apple requirez you to use your fingerprint to open your own effing iPhone.

[a little elbow grease]

Even privacy-loving Germany is considering using a smartphone app to help manage the spread of the disease.

_____________

I never knew Germans were particularly "privacy-loving".

[I want the USA back]

And after the excuse of covid is over, the authorities will invent another justification for slurping up and using this information.

A few years ago, we switched to new “reflective” registration plates that were going to “save 1000 lives a year.” The real reason was the license plate readers that are now on all police cars and are scanning all plates automatically, with the information being put into a database.

Cars and cell phones. That covers almost everyone. When this country gets a democrat president, all that information will be put to use to monitor and control the public.

[EODGUY]

George Orwell was a prophet.

[EODGUY]

George Orwell was a prophet.

[Old Yeller]

Just wait until 5G. They’ll really be able to collect data on us.

[jrestrepo]

I cannot speak for all of companies, but this is not the cases for the companies that I worked for over the last 20 years. The ICs are designed with a simple connection between itself and the power button. The phone is not even in standby. What it is waiting for is a closed circuit which energizes the main IC, that in turn boots the phone. I worked for a Motorola and Qualcomm, and they didn’t do it because it would kill their battery life. Qualcomm is the primary chipset for 100s of millions of phones around the world. Others like, Apple, make their own chipset.

[x]

It sees you when you're sleeping.
It knows when you're awake.
It knows if you've been bad or good
So you better be good for goodness sake.

[dfwgator]

Electric Eye - Judas Priest

Up here in space
I’m looking down on you
My lasers trace
Everything you do

You think you’ve private lives
Think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape
I’m watching all the time

I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

I’m elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye

Always in focus
You can’t feel my stare
I zoom into you
But you don’t know I’m there

I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove

I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

I’m elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye

Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
There’s nothing you can do about it
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows

I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

I’m elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye
I’m elected electric spy
I’m elected protective, detective, Electric Eye!

[apoliticalone]

We’ve been conditioned to always have our cell phone with us. Can’t get along without it. We’ve been conditioned or forced to get the latest phone where the battery can no longer be removed, and thus no longer able to completely power down the phone. Tracking is insidious as much is now done by corporations.

Might be better to go back to analog radio like CB if you want to communicate and travel short distances without being tracked like a rare animal with a locator.

We are like the frog in a gradually heated pan of water where our rights and privacy and what we always took for granted are being taken, and we accept it because it is gradual.