Question for tech people related to "geofence" warrants served on Google: How easy is it for a cell phone user, either of an Android or an iPhone, to stop Google from generating the detailed location info needed to be responsive to a geofence warrant? What do you need to do?
I love that you try and keep people from armchairing their answer. I`ve tried that and it`s never worked for me.
It is my understanding that sensorvault (whose existence makes geofence warrants feasible at Google) only stores data from users who have location history turned on. It is not clear to me if geofence warrant returns are being provided against other sources of location data.
On Android, there are many ways of yielding location data, at varying levels of granularity. Theres a case about this (Google collecting location and the confusion it creates for consumers), but it only covers a fraction of the ways they can infer it: Easy-ish. Depends on (a) the precise area covered (b) apps installed & running (c) model of the phone (d) 3g/4g/5g. Are you asking if Apple/Google generates the data or if the device does? The former is easier. Retroactive is harder. DM/email if you need a nuanced answer.
All the data Google collects about you, directly from your use of their services, is available to you on your dashboard. The kicker is that the data they buy and mix in with that is not, and that may include location data from cell companies.
from what i understand, the geofence warrants specifically rely on Location History set up in your Google Maps, and is an opt-in feature. if you turn that off, it should keep you out of geofence warrant dumps Google explained it in an amicus curae brief But they must hold it for some period of time bc they use it in missing persons cases. And the carriers would know that that info could be asked for as evidence, so they probably kept all of it from the relevant towers. And it`s possible the NSA hoovered some of that stuff up
I`m pretty sure it`s as simply as turning off all "Location" settings. Since that`s a well-known feature, I think the opposite question for experts is what information Google still might have even when "location" tracking is disabled.
I highly doubt a user can prevent the law from getting all the data it needs regardless of what settings you turn off. Android ELS, emergency location services, runs in the background for 911 calls.
If you know a physicists or an electrical engineer, I would ask them. I do not think it is a trivial matter to build a faraday cage that is good enough to block all such signals reliably.
Don`t cell towers ping you regardless of software settings? Don`t they use cell tower triangulation to find phone locations? I`m not an expert but I always thought the only way to stop the tracking was by turning the phone off. Maybe Airplane mode?
I think you are asking "How does one prevent location information from being logged in Sensorvault and associated with a Google Account?"
The question isnt easy to answer. For iPhonesits more complex on Androidthe first step is to deny access to location services to Google websites and apps. But its not that simple. If youre using WiFiand Im at home now, so I ammy phone has my apartments IP address. 1/
Not trivial. Opting out of Google`s location tracking is fairly trivial, but your resedential IP still places you precisely, as does the current list of available WiFi APs. Real answer depends on how Google is capturing and correlating this data.
might know ?
Deny GPS service, tracking, and other location telemetry to Google services, most easily and thoroughly done with custom ROMs and privacy tools built in to things like and XPrivacyLua.
Easy, really. Trivial on android. If it is a concerns, use a flexible faraday bag and no signals in or out.
The most reliable way is to reflash the phone with something like Lineage OS, and not to install GooglePlayServices. In such way you do not exist for Google at all. (getting a modern Huawei is a sub-option here since it doesn`t have Google Play either).
This does seem right up `s alley...
Dont know if this helps. You want accurate serious answers? I cant wait to read the opinions and guesses
If you don`t trust the software to be straight with you about what it`s doing, there is an antenna that is a physical necessity to get the data in the first place... a skritch on the right trace on the circuit board will do the job.
Its impossible if you use Android. It could be possible if you use iPhone and dont download any Google apps or use google services. Thats hard to do b/c many other apps use Google for ad services. Its interesting that LO has gone this route vs cell tower info.
If you use iPhone dont allow any location data in google apps
Very hard on Android, there are a ton of hidden location services that report to Google. Easy on Apple: Don`t use Google Maps, the API for geolocation is deliberately obnoxious in terms of notifying users.
There`s a whole feature of Google Maps that can show you where you have been on any given day since you started. In the settings, you can tell them to stop recording and/or delete your history. Whether or not Google really stops tracking, stops using, deletes, etc. is a trust Q.
How to stop location tracking I`m seeking info from people who actually know the answer based on their expertise, not from those who are just guessing, or are who are now googling around to figure out what the answer may be,)
I will tell you this.. i dont know but i turned off all location tracking on my phone when i got this iphone. At the end of the month i got an email asking me if id like a nice picture of everywhere id been the previous month. It was from google which tracked me anyways
