A source acquainted with the matter said the cell tower addresses were being sent out to Google after a modification in early 2017 to the Firebase Cloud Messaging service, which is owned by Google and runs on Android phones by default.Even devices that had been reset to factory default settings and apps, with place services handicapped, were observed by Quartz sending neighboring cell-tower addresses to Google. Devices with a cellular data or WiFi connection appear to send out the information to Google each time they come within variety of a new cell tower. When Android devices are connected to a WiFi network, they will send the tower addresses to Google even if they don’t have SIM cards set up.”It has quite concerning ramifications,”said Bill Budington, a software engineer who works for the Electronic Frontier Structure, a nonprofit company that promotes for digital personal privacy.”You can sort of picture any number of situations where that could be incredibly delicate info that puts a person at danger.”The area of Google’s personal privacy policy that covers area sharing states the business will collect area details from devices that use its services, however does not suggest whether it will collect information from Android gadgets when area services are disabled: When you utilize Google services, we might gather and process details about your real place. We utilize various technologies to determine area, consisting of IP address, GPS, and other sensors that may, for example, provide Google with details on nearby gadgets, Wi-Fi gain access to points and cell towers.According to the Google spokesperson, the business’s system that manages its push notices and messages is”clearly separate from Location Services, which provide a gadget’s location to apps.”Android gadgets never used customers a way to opt out of the
collection of cell tower information.”It is truly a mystery regarding why this is not optional,” said Matthew Hickey, a security specialist and researcher at Hacker House, a security company based in London.”It seems quite invasive for Google to be collecting such info that is only pertinent to provider networks when there are no SIM card or enabled services.”While Google says it does not use the place information it collects using this service, its does allow advertisers to target customers using place information, a technique that has apparent commercial worth. The company can inform utilizing precise area tracking, for example, whether a private with an Android phone or running Google apps has set foot in a particular shop, and use that to target the marketing a user consequently sees.
Source
http://www.nextgov.com/mobile/2017/11/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/142706/
