Google Reportedly Collects Device Location Data, Even If Disabled

Google has been collecting location data from all the Android devices, even when the location services are disabled, reports Quartz. This privacy violation or say location data is been collected since early 2017.

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Google’s Location Data

The company is said to have access to data about individuals’ location and their movements, beyond the user’s expectations of privacy, as the company did not limit its collection of location data if the service was disabled.

Google uses the cell-tower information that is receiving from the back-door, to manage push notifications and messages on Android phones since the past 11 months. It is still unclear how the cell tower addresses could improve message delivery, but it is a clear violation of users privacy.

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According to Quartz, every Android device, which is either connected to cellular data or WiFi connections appears to be sending location data to Google each time they come across a new cell tower, (notably) even if there’s no SIM card inserted.

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Quartz on observing the location collecting practice has reached out to Google to which the company responded confirming the observation and is now taking steps to end this privacy violation by the end of November 2017.

Google spokesperson said to Quartz (in email);

In January of this year, we began looking into using Cell ID codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery. However, we never incorporated Cell ID into our network sync system, so that data was immediately discarded, and we updated it to no longer request Cell ID.

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