To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by pmorici on Sunday March 18, 2018 @03:00PM (#16613607)

You don't have to be using Maps or an app that obviously uses location for Google to be collecting location related information. I have no idea when they do or don't but I'd bet people would be surprised if they found that the gmail app was relaying their location to Google. On the other hand few wouuld be surprised at all if you told them the maps app was sending their location.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by Digit-Al on Sunday March 18, 2018 @03:30PM (#16613782)

If you have all location services turned on then your phone tracks your location constantly in real time. Go to My Timeline on Google Maps and it can show you a full map of everywhere you went on any particular day.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by tigershark on Sunday March 18, 2018 @05:08PM (#16614350)

No, only if you allow to track you even when you’re not using it. Unless you are speaking about android and in that case it may well be like this, no idea honestly.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by ocdtrekkie on Sunday March 18, 2018 @06:17PM (#16614797)

Most people have Android, it has an 85% global market share. And yes, this is how Android works. Play Services, which includes "Google Location Services" is preinstalled on essentially every phone that isn't an iPhone, and runs in the background by default. Doesn't matter if you have any apps open or not, Google's collecting location unless you explicitly go in and shut it off.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by Digit-Al on Thursday March 29, 2018 @08:22AM (#16706379)

> No, only if you allow to track you even when you’re not using it.

I possibly wasn't clear enough. That's what I meant when I wrote "If you have all location services turned on". Location tracking is part of location services.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by yborg on Sunday March 18, 2018 @03:11PM (#16613664)

No idea if this is true, but could be for security. If you log in to Gmail in Des Moines and then an hour later from Moldavia, something might be up.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by js2 on Sunday March 18, 2018 @03:17PM (#16613709)

Geolocating the IP should be sufficient for that; no need for the phone to relay its physical location. I would think.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by pmorici on Sunday March 18, 2018 @03:16PM (#16613698)

Sure, this is about a layman's expectations though not whether or not they have a sufficient reason.

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Re:To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google by pirocks on Sunday March 18, 2018 @05:54PM (#16614653)

I've noticed that the Google weather app seems to know where I am even with location, data, and WiFi turned off.

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