This is why I constantly work to help people reduce their dependence on Google. Screw that. If anyone ever tells you that they rely on Google for anything, show them this article.
But I definitely live in fear of Google fucking up and disabling my account.
The parents Google tried to get arrested in the story above do not agree.
> When Mark’s and Cassio’s photos were automatically uploaded from their phones to Google’s servers, this technology flagged them. Jon Callas of the E.F.F. called the scanning intrusive, saying a family photo album on someone’s personal device should be a “private sphere.” (A Google spokeswoman said the company scans only when an “affirmative action” is taken by a user; that includes when the user’s phone backs up photos to the company’s cloud.)
Google not only automatically uploaded their images to their server, it analyzed those images and reported the users to the police for kiddie porn based on a single false positive.
I never enable cloud backups, because it means my shit is sent somewhere.
Then they proceed to claim those automatic backups are an "affirmative action" that justifies them scanning the contents of your images as well.
When setting up a new phone (and many times thereafter) they prompt you to enable photos backup. It's not on by default if I remember correctly.
You keep saying that, but it remains false. The parents explicitly opted in to sending their photos to Google.
If you care about not sending photos to Google, it's pretty obvious how to not have that happen.
IMO, Google is not the bad guy here, although when it was explained to them that the photos were legitimate, they should definitely have reenabled the account.
I'm OK with Google scanning photos that I send to them that will be stored on their servers. Honestly, how can they not?
About weekly it prompts me with a huge popup whether I want to continue without backup, with "enable backup" selected by default. If I deselect this I'm prompted with another popup asking me to back up specific selected photos. If I misclick either of these (which is easy, since they pop up after briefly showing my photos which I'm actively trying to tap on), then Google will start hoovering up all my photos without confirmation.
Their "consent" form is user-hostile and it's disingenuous to hold it as an example of Google protecting privacy.
Pro tip: install Google Gallery which (ironically) is effectively a de-Googled Photos. Unfortunately it's also stripped down in other ways but it suffices for simply viewing photos on your own device.
It's sort of the crime of "contempt of court", but after the fact: receiving a judge's prescription about how you must interpret a law during a case, but then going right back to using a different interpretation when you leave court.
> Google, on the other hand, uploads photos to their server and does the analysis there.
The comment you're replying to (and the whole sub-thread in fact) isn't about if how Apple is doing it is the best/worst way, but rather before they do it, they don't ask for permission. Regardless of how they technically do it, the fact that they don't ask beforehand is what is being argued about here.
(I agree this is the point in contention, I just don’t understand it).
Google, on the other hand, uploads photos to their server and does the analysis there.
There is the infamous case of the parents who Google tried to have arrested after they used their Android device to seek medical assistance for their child during lockdown. Their doctor asked them to send images of the problem, and Google called the police and reported the parents for kiddie porn.
> “I knew that these companies were watching and that privacy is not what we would hope it to be,” Mark said. “But I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The police agreed. Google did not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...
Google refused to return access to his account even after the police cleared him of wrongdoing.