Google play service and locations = identify you?

Bootlace1170

I’m curious what others think. If I enable all the time locations for Google play services, even though Google does not have any hardware identifiers, wouldn’t Google be able to identify who I am simply based on my location, eg by where the phone seems to spend the night?

p338k

Bootlace1170

Google could do that quite easily if you provide your location.

[deleted]

"By default, location requests are rerouted to a reimplementation of the Play geolocation service provided by GrapheneOS. You can disable rerouting and use the standard Play services geolocation service instead if you want the Google network location service and related features." from https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play

Bootlace1170

[deleted] Thanks, if I turn it on, which seems to help for GPS tagging, but this seems to really defeat some of GOS? Now that they've identified, still I guess they are limited in what they would know, given the sandbox.

de0u

Bootlace1170 If I turn it on, which seems to help for GPS tagging, but this seems to really defeat some of GOS?

GrapheneOS supports people with varying priorities. A person who wants to avoid being location-tracked by Google can choose GPS-only localization, and a person who prefers quick localization and geocoding can choose Google's system. The choice is part of GrapheneOS, so people choosing one way or the other does not defeat the OS.

Hopefully the collaboration between GrapheneOS and beaconDB will bear fruit, resulting in a third option.

Bootlace1170

de0u this makes a ton of sense. I can also do this on a secondary profile when I want quick gps, especially when taking pictures.