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.
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
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.
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:
Use /e/OS officially supported on fair phone 5
That all sounds like on-device behavior. You didn’t say anything about it actually being uploaded.
I use Adguard and block Google photos from connecting to the internet.
Features like edit video still work, so I’m good. If editing didn’t work, I’d disable it.
Additional tip: You can use the universal android debloater tool to remove baled in apps on your phone.
Not against your will, you accepted this and more in the TOS of your account. But you can avoid it in the permission settings in your phone.
The second biggest lie in Internet: “I’ve read the Privacy Policies and Terms of Service” the first one “We respect the privacy of the user”.
Faschist company with a faschist government. Stop asking for legal, take control, go Open Source.
Same thing happened to me, and there is a delete all button. Go to Google photos > top right profile pic > backup is off (or whatever it says when it’s on) > top right gear > undo backup for this device.
If you were using Photos as a photo roll app you need to stay angry at yourself a while longer. That’s on you when you should know you cannot trust the G. Don’t grant an app permissions to photos and videos that could sync it to the cloud. And as another precaution, don’t keep sensitive pictures in the DCIM folder. If I have to take pictures of sensitive documents like that I disable WiFi (sync set up on WiFi only), take the picture, move it to a folder that’s never backed up elsewhere on my phone, and then turn WiFi back on.
You are not normal because you care about these things. The normal user doesn’t care and that’s who they are catering for. I’m not excusing their behavior (I don’t like it either) and at the same time you need to be more on your toes.
I’m planning to move to Ente this year when my Google cloud subscription runs out. Not looking forward to the work it entails but to the [paints face blue] FREEDOM!
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.)
could you DM me this signal group link, please?
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
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.
I’ve heard about this too.
install e/os:
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5
or:
CalyxOS releases are paused, but when they are back: https://calyxos.org/
e/os is most likely my next step, especially with Google disabling installing “unverified” third-party apps in 2026.
Bought a FP5 with e/os in mind as a possible upgrade path, I just was too worried to immediately do the full jump.
Yes, I’ve installed e/os on my fairphone 5 and it just works. I even got my banking apps to work.
Hmm… I wonder… does GrapheneOS work on the Fairphone?
They don’t and in their typical style they’ve written a very verbose post or two on why
Huh, link to their explanation?
I don’t but its been posted a couple of times on Mastodon, I assume its on their blog and in their forms too.
The jist is Fairphone doesn’t have the security HW to run it
Would be nice if fairphone was in talks of making sure that adequate hardware will be in next version. That would benefit both projects even if they didn’t offer official support.
I’ll guessing the problem will be the chipset vendor.
The GrapheneOS folks said they are working with an ODM to put out their own phone in the future.
I’m happy with it on my used Pixel 8 Pro but if they offered a phone I’d probably get one
If you disable Google photos storage access you don’t even have a camera roll :/
That’s how embedded the damn thing is
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.
