Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Thoughts on Google turning every device into a scanner for Find My Device? (self.privacy)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by s38b35M5 to c/[email protected]

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah im not gonna swipe someone elses device to find mine with

[–] s38b35M5 1 points 6 months ago

If you're unfamiliar with the change being implemented, Google is using every android device to detect every other device and report that location to a central database. You can then go to the Find My Device app or website and your device can be located if it's been seen by any other device.

There's no need for the user to access anybody else's device.

My concern is that my privacy is now being invaded by all the scanning devices in my area, and everybody's movements are even more transparent for the data brokers.