Privacy (Location pinging in background)

[kv1532]

This post is for those privacy conscience and aware of the insane data mining these companies do. r/privacy on Reddit is a great source for those wanting to dive into the rabbit hole of information about this.

I'm privacy conscience with tech. I know how foolish I sound saying that and yet still using Google/Samsung. I, however, feel like I've taken as many significant steps to limit data mining as I can short of going to custom ROM territory.

I obviously limit all "permissions" in the normie way and also run Blokada plus to just help take more control over things. I realized that Bluetooth is pinging my location every 1-3 minutes non stop. I can not revoke location access and unfortunately use Bluetooth on and off throughout the day so turning it off is not an option.

Here's my question: I don't recall my last phone S8 (Android 10) pinging location for Bluetooth (I could be wrong). Those of you with older phones, can you confirm if this is a new thing or has it always been. If new, this could be a major drain on battery and needs to be patched.

[user_ams007]

Open the settings for your location services and then turn off Bluetooth scanning and wifi scanning

[kv1532]

It's off already. I sweep through new phones for settings like this. Still does it unfortunately

[user_ams007]

It should not affect your privacy, for example, some system applications run in the background and don't affect battery life, Google has an Application called Android intelligence and Private compute services if you look at the permissions you will see these applications have total access, also you can open the settings for privacy and select the permissions make sure that you have the show system setting checked and you can see all the application's that use location services and nearly scanning

[kv1532]

Yeah I've been scoping it out pretty thoroughly. I'm happy we can see and visualize this but it would be nice to give us full control of some of this stuff. Tired of the datamining

[user_ams007]

Unfortunately, I haven't found any reason to think that the data collected is not being used for marketing purposes

[kv1532]

Oh it's definitely used for marketing.

[robotdinosaur]

Nice I'll try this with my headphones later and see if they still work. Thanks

[robotdinosaur]

What is custom ROM in terms of my privacy as a consumer? Not very privacy knowledgeable just curious what that is.

I remove permissions too unless an app tells me it might break my phone (i both remove and don't remove everything to avoid the battery issues people worry about with the new ultras)

I had S9 before and they didn't have a feature to show how our privacy was accessed, I believe this is new.

I recently got samsung headphones and they require bluetooth. I typically keep location off but it forced me turn location on and give it permission or bluetooth won't work. Not sure if that has always or is actually necessary, but I can see them saying it's necessary by writing code that literally forces a blue screen etc unless location is enabled "and therefore it is necessary".

[kv1532]

A custom ROM is basically a custom phone OS. Look up calyxos or grapheneos. Only issue is that it won't work with Samsung's only pixles. They are degoogled, noninvasive versions of android.

As far as permissions, the setting option is only part of it and I think it leads to false senses of security. I revoked Google play services access to every permission. Most apps use Google play services for things. So we turn off permissions for a specific app but if the app uses Google play services, it's possible that app can access permissions you revoked. This is mostly speculation but there's a concensus that it's very possible.

Samsung seems to have required certain permissions for things to work. I don't remember this being required on my last phone and I'm super  that I'm forced to give data to megatech companies just to use things.