Google launches social distancing tracking site using location data - Bottom text

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www.google.com

New Google site shows where people in a community are taking social distancing seriously — and where they're not

For public health departments, this kind of data could be helpful in alerting them to the next potential COVID-19 hotspot.
www.google.com www.google.com
Google launches social distancing tracking site using location data

RT: Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google 180124

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Google
has launched a new website that uses anonymous location data collected from users of Google products and services to show the level of social distancing taking place in various locations.
The COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports
web site
will show population data trends of six categories: Retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. The data will track changes over the course of several weeks, and as recent as 48-to-72 hours prior, and will initially cover 131 countries as well as individual counties within certain states.
Google says the data will be collected in aggregate, rather than at an individual level, and it won't show absolute numbers of people showing up at parks or grocery stores. The idea instead is to outline percentages, which highlight potential surges in attendance. For example, its first reports states that San Francisco County has seen a 72% drop in retail and recreation, a 55% decline in parks' population, and a 21% increase in residential population between Feb. 16 and March 29.

 
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northstar747 said:
We ve talked about this in other threads the cell towers can still track you and pinging is part of the spec for 911. Its one thing to have a 3rd party App follow you, but the network its self can track you.

Not to get too nerdy but I doubt Torr is really secure and that the powers that be know alot more with our information systems then they let on.

leave the phone at home
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can google track you with a flip phone?
 
Freya said:
just get a $40 flip phone from walmart.
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Nah. I'll just go with no cellphone at all.

Admittedly I have only had the $30 smartphone for two years for this current iteration of my career. Before that it was no phone. No skin off my nose; it's everyone else that seems to bitch and complain.
 
Freya said:
I'd rather give it to telecom companies than google.
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Historically in the US, the data in regards the general area (to within a few hundred yards) that a phone is in was not just available to cellular providers, but also dodgy 'location aggregators' that would sell it to pretty much anyone who wanted it. This went on for over a decade.
www.rcrwireless.com

Carriers pledge to limit aggregators' access to customer location data - RCR Wireless News

Following press investigations and congressional concern about leaks and improper use of consumer location data provided by mobile network operators, the national carriers have said that they are ending relationships with aggregators and/or will strictly limit aggregators’ access to such...
www.rcrwireless.com www.rcrwireless.com
www.fiercewireless.com

Wireless carriers tell FCC they stopped selling user location data to aggregators

The top U.S. wireless carriers have told the FCC they stopped selling customer location data to third-party aggregators.
www.fiercewireless.com www.fiercewireless.com
After some scandals in 2018 where it was shown that absolutely anyone could access this data without even needing an account on the location aggregators, the FCC was forced to take action two years later and fine them for doing this. It's probably still happening under some different name.
www.wired.com

The FCC Fines Wireless Companies for Selling Users' Location Data

The proposed fines—against T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint—total more than $200 million for their role in breaches of privacy.
www.wired.com www.wired.com
 
northstar747 said:
We ve talked about this in other threads the cell towers can still track you and pinging is part of the spec for 911. Its one thing to have a 3rd party App follow you, but the network its self can track you.

Not to get too nerdy but I doubt Torr is really secure and that the powers that be know alot more with our information systems then they let on.

leave the phone at home
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This isn't really viable if you want or need to keep in touch with family, friends, acquaintances, work, etc, while traveling. The only real solution to the surveillance state is its dissolution. Which, obviously, is easier said than done. I dunno if even someone like Rand Paul could pull it off in two terms as president. I know it needs to be done though, since I can think of few more obvious threats to our liberty then the authorities potentially knowing where everyone is at all times.
 
Woah! Our corporate overlords are trying to save lives with a COMPLETELY INNOCENT AND ANONYMOUS tracker? How heroic of them.
The more I see this shit, the more I wish to cut off electronics like a Luddite and live in the fucking woods. Makes it seem as if there's nearly no escape from this.

Twinkletard said:
There's not much that separates the ideologies of Google and the CCP.
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Only insult to injury how all these phones enjoy using Google's ecosystem too. It makes me think, what's worse, using Chinkphones or Google phones within our OWN country?
 
Radical Cadre said:
I've got a lot of push and pull that make me have to have a cellphone.

But maybe I need to go back to just smashing the thing with a hammer and dropping the remains into a jar of acetone. The house phone still works, after all.
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Nah, just turn it off when not in use. When in use, keep conversations short. Use DuckDuckGo instead of Google for search.
 
FunPosting101 said:
This isn't really viable if you want or need to keep in touch with family, friends, acquaintances, work, etc, while traveling. The only real solution to the surveillance state is its dissolution. Which, obviously, is easier said than done. I dunno if even someone like Rand Paul could pull it off in two terms as president. I know it needs to be done though, since I can think of few more obvious threats to our liberty then the authorities potentially knowing where everyone is at all times.
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Eh at the risk of a slight derail, over a decade ago I got out of a rather ugly relationship, I fucking hated cell phone I called it the invisible leash, I went a year with out one and while it created issues at some point. Living like I was in the 1990s and having to remind people I dont have a cell phone and we have to agree on where and when in advance it was doable.

FYI I have a smart phone and run brave, I also leave it at home at times.

So to bring it back around, if you are gonna do something and think no one is watching, that phone as long as it talks to the cell tower creates a record. Now I know my local law enforcement aint gonna do shit, but if I was in a place like NYC I would just turn the damn thing off when I try to escape from it.
 
If things with this forced economic freefall get bad enough that we turn to cannibalism, let's eat Silicon Valley first.
 
Nothing wrong can arise from this. I heartily agree with their data mining collection and their attempts to share this data with the highest bidder public.

I eagerly look forward to their next endeavor to unethically listen to our conversations by quietly enabling the microphones on our phones so that they can hear for news disinformation and misinformation surrounding the Wuhan Coronavirus COVID-19.
 
FunPosting101 said:
This isn't really viable if you want or need to keep in touch with family, friends, acquaintances, work, etc, while traveling. The only real solution to the surveillance state is its dissolution. Which, obviously, is easier said than done. I dunno if even someone like Rand Paul could pull it off in two terms as president. I know it needs to be done though, since I can think of few more obvious threats to our liberty then the authorities potentially knowing where everyone is at all times.
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Lolwat.
Barely anyone actually uses phones to call or text anymore, due to the massive amount of spam people get.
Now they use similar substitutes like voice chat or discord/messenger/some other thing. All of which doesn't require a cell reception.

Sure connecting to wi-fi still makes you trackable but it's still less invasive than being tracked via cell towers.
 
This would be really great for governments who want to track when like minded people are gathering together, wouldn't it? I'm sure nobody will ever use that for a massacre. Maybe Google can even come up with a new Google Massacre app for rounding up dissidents in the post-covid New World Order.
 
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