Hyderabad: Google is watching and recording every move you make online as well as in the real world.
When you carry your mobile phone with you, the company is able to use location services to predict whether you are walking, riding a bike, or driving a car. Google records information even when users have explicitly stated that they do not want to be tracked.
Even turning off GPS and internet services, putting your phone in airplane mode, or taking out the SIM card does not stop the company from being able to locate you.
In a report recently published by Quartz Media LLC, it was mentioned that the transmission of location history information could be captured using a portable WiFi network capable of eavesdropping on all the devices connected to it.
It was able to record and forward all the transmissions broadcast from and received by the devices in the network.
At a time when cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly common, tech giants need to keep their consumers informed about the kind of data that they are gathering. According to Google, a user’s location history is used to provide more accurate results and recommendations with respect to features such as traffic predictions. The company says “You control what’s saved in your location history, and you can delete your history at any time.”
However, Google’s privacy policy says, “When you use Google services, we may collect and process information about your actual location. We use various technologies to determine location, including IP address, GPS, and other sensors that may, for example, provide Google with information on nearby devices, Wi-Fi access points and cell towers.”
This means that Google can estimate your phone’s location based on the location of cellular towers in the vicinity. The phone or tablet may also have inbuilt sensors such as accelerometers, which can be used to determine the speed of movement, and gyroscopes, which can be used to determine the direction of travel.
