I’ve gotten a new phone and setting it up for the past few days - a Fairphone 5 with Android installed. So obviously, this means I can’t escape Googles clutches. Sure, whatever.
I have been VERY adamant about pressing “No” on all prompts, that try to get me to try something out or use some dumb service. I do not want any AI tool or similar to go through my files.
Yet, while perousing the depths of my system settings, I realized Google Photos was using a suspicous amount of storage. Somehow, it had “synchronized” ALL my locally saved pictures - this included pictures of my vacations, my drivers license, private pictures I would have rather not shared, and so on…
And while checking the Google Photos App for the damage done, obviously it had already automatically generated “previews” and “albums” for me, neatly organized.
IT HAD AUTOMATICALLY ANALYSED MY DRIVERS LICENSE AND SAVED IT INTO AN ALBUM CALLED “Identity-related”
How the fuck is this legal? I am so mad at myself right now. I’m usually so fuckin cautious about denying any sort of pop-up and setting all settings as strictly as possible.
So obviously I just had to spent 2 hours figuring out how to turn this “synchronization” off, and how to delete all photos in google photos - spoiler alert: There is no “Delete All” button. You have to manually select every single fucking image.
Sorry for the rant, I hope it’s not too off-topic. I’m just so mad right now.
Ya. I’m sorry for you.
Problem is, even if you delete the Images, Google has already scraped them for info on you and used your Google account and phone number to tie it all together to further its data aggregation profile on you.
Have some dic pics that were uploaded that i sent to my gf when we started dating and i’m glad i didn’t delete them because now they have to look at my junk every time they decide to go snooping around where they shouldn’t.
Did they also suck up photos of your gf?
If yes, you’re an asshole for leaking nudes of someone else to a third party.
If no, you’re an asshole because you sent dick pics to someone and they weren’t into it.
Fyi she asked for them and we got married last Friday after 5,5 years together and she sent me a few pics which i didn’t keep or download on my end but it was over WhatsApp so they are already in the system asshole.
Yeah man, you gotta use SimpleX or Wire or something safer than WhatsApp for nudes.
We use Signal at the moment, we haven’t used WhatsApp between us at least for almost 5 years.
Google Photos fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software.
What did you expect? LMAOO
I got sick of GP when they announced AI learning on user photos (or actually that’s just the last straw). I use a combination of these two apps now:
that’s why i straight up delete proprietary corporate apps now whenever possible, even if i don’t use them.
they WILL do what they want unprompted, then make it difficult to undo.
Use /e/OS officially supported on fair phone 5
/e/OS is a good option to regain privacy from Google, but arguably does some things worse in terms of security than stock.
You can find a good comparison here.
For the Fairphone 5, I’d recommend CalyxOS as soon as they’re back from their hiatus. In the meantime, might as well stick with stock.
That’s why I tend to stick to Apple. They’re both evil, just one is a little bit less evil.
Only thing now evil than Apple is Microsoft.
Apple does the exact same thing
Tell me, what should people use instead? Should I train my own pigeon to send messages?
Yes.
Apple announced plans last year to scan iCloud Photos for known sexually abusive depictions of children, but the rollout was delayed indefinitely after resistance from privacy groups.
That’s from the article. But the article is from 2023 so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s changed.
Apple is worse for security, and therefore worse for privacy.
You’re not wrong; people are just tribalistic.
Check out Aves Libre on F-Droid
I had to ditch Google Photos app because of my paranoia, about this exact same thing that happened to you.
Thanks for the tip. Newest version doesn’t run on graphene though. Second newest does.
Wdym? I am using the latest (1.13.6) on Graphene.
Well when trying to install the latest APK (don’t have fdroid) I just get a message that it didn’t install because my system is not supported?
It works fine from the developer build. Better not use the app signed by F-Droid. Also there are two releases of Aves: Aves Gallery and Aves Gallery Libre
Best experience you’ll have is from Accrescent
Yikes. There’s a reason the barrier to entry in the official store is high.
On Accrescent* would be better
I tried that, and I greatly prefer Fossify Gallery. It’s based on the old QuikPic source code.
is it? I thought it’s based on simple gallery code
Yes, this happens. Even if you turn off all the syncing etc, they will shoot an update and all your settings will revert to default. This has happened with my father’s phone a lot.
And even if you keep all these settings off, they are still scanning all photos to check for CSAM.
I highly recommend deGoogling your phone. If you cannot install a custom ROM, check out Universal Android Debloater. There are many sources for degoogling your life. Check out c/degoogle on Lemmy (I forgot the instance name, just search for it). Or if you want we have small group on Signal for deGoogling related talks, DM me and I can share the link to join. (Signal does require a phone number to register, but since usernames are a thing your phone number will not be available publicly.)
I appreciate your comment, replying here for reference, perhaps I’d like to join that signal channel. Being staunchly anti-google I feel I’m on top of things, but my Gmail is used across many of my logins. With the scanning for CSAM issue, many people don’t realize that Google installs a hidden app called safetycore, for me it gets reinstalled on every update.
https://allthings.how/what-is-android-system-safetycore-and-why-did-it-appear-on-your-phone-2/
There not even checking for CSAM
That would be near impossIble considering the tech. Even on a normal portrait is hard to judge the age on. Let alone fotos with more complex perspectives and only some body parts visible.
What they are doing is using hashes of specific real pictures that the police know are commonly shared.
Theoretically it could catch some careless content consuming offenders. The worst offenders, that produce new material, are beyond the scope.
But also, obvious what google gets is just the hashcodes and not the actual pics. If the police gave google a hash to target for pics of vances bald head or (trans-positive) memes who would know?
There was a news some time ago, that a man was arrested for clicking nude pictures of children, later it was found out that he was sending pictures of his child to a doctor for diagnosis. How did that happen?
I’ll link the source if I find it.
Update:
NYTimes - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html
Paywall removed - https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html
I’ve heard about this too.
That must be some other system indeed.
They don’t really provide much information from how the images were actually shared though.
Maybe there is a machine learning algorithm that is trained to detect specific features in a random photo but i cant imagine it being accurate without frequent false possibles.
Could be that if you have a certain amount of “plausible” hits then a google employee has to review them manually and they quickly Judged it wrongly?
Though that technically implies your Private medical picture is now seen and possibly covertly copied by a (rogue) employee.
They don’t manually review. They just shutdown your account and you can’t contact them. See my other comment
It’s been well documented.
False positives don’t matter, and there’s no human to talk to when it occurs.
A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions, even though law enforcement cleared the two men.
They are literally too big to care.
False positives are a thing. They do scan all your photos for csam. Poorly.
We know this because of the article during the pandemic when a dude sent a photo of his son’s dick to a doctor (it had an infection and the doctor asked to see it). Dude lost access to his entire google account. Lost everything. Emails, files, everything. It wasn’t a hash.
deleted by creator
fairphones can also run custom roms. with calyxos the bootloader can even be relocked for security, it’s done by the installer. that way google services are optional
If you disable Google photos storage access you don’t even have a camera roll :/
That’s how embedded the damn thing is
You don’t really need a camera roll. Just use your normal gallery after taking pics.
You can disable Google Photos outright. No need to play with permissions.
Oh damn really? I was just about to tell OP why didn’t they just delete Google Photos and use something like Aves instead. But if disabling/deleting the app disables camera roll then that’s total bullshit. That should be like lawsuit worthy, I shouldn’t have to use your app to have pictures, especially when that service is doing sneaky uploads.
I just checked,
google photos has permanent access to photos and videos. If you disable the app the camera roll no longer works. I get “activity not found”.
Maybe with a FOSS camera app it might still work? I haven’t tried.
Edit: and that is the only permission which it has ( photos and videos ). Everything else ( location, contacts, … ) is not allowed. But that one permission is auto permanently allowed.
Just don’t install gapps. Its missing by default when you install the OS…
That all sounds like on-device behavior. You didn’t say anything about it actually being uploaded.
I don’t think AI computational happen locally…
Well, next time, make sure you have your settings set correctly - test with a few pictures at first…
I use pCloud, and it works great for my needs. I have deleted everything I had ever uploaded to Google, besides the simplest backup from my mobile phone, so I can easily restore it, if my phone breaks and I need a new one.
Pcloud has a backdoor. By default end to end encryption is off (and it can be turned off again)
Oh, do you think there’s any solution without a backdoor?
If you are worried, you can use the extra encryption: “pCloud offers an optional encryption service, providing zero-knowledge client-side encryption. Files placed in the Crypto folder are encrypted before leaving the user’s device and remain inaccessible even to pCloud. This feature is offered as a paid add-on.”
And if you are totally paranoid, then encrypt what you use, yourself.
Yes. Mega and Proton Drive and Tresorit are always client side encrypted. There is no backdoor like pCloud has.
It’s kinda a pain to use 'cause so many apps rely on Google services, so those need to be replaced with alternatives, but e/OS is installable and is supported by Fairphone
https://community.e.foundation/t/install-e-os-v2-on-fairphone-5-my-little-guide/58260
