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Google Photos Uploading Your Pics, Even If You Don't Want It To
New submitter Adekyn writes that, according to David A. Arnott of The Business Journals, the Google Photos app will sync your photos — even after you have deleted the application from your device.
From the article: All I had to do to turn my phone into a stealth Google Photos uploader was to turn on the backup sync, then uninstall the app. Whereas one might reasonably believe uninstalling the app from the phone would stop photos from uploading automatically to Google Photos, the device still does it even in the app’s absence. Since making this discovery, I have re-created the issue multiple times in multiple settings on my Galaxy S5.
I reached out to Google, and after reaching someone on the phone and describing the issue, was told to wait for a comment. Several hours later, I received a terse email that said, “The backup was as intended.” If I want to stop it from happening, I was told I'd have to change settings in Google Play Services.
A video of the process accompanies the article.
Modern app appers know that apps app apps, so this is working just as designed! Only Luddites expect Luddite software to stop working when uninstalled!
Apps!
I discovered something astounding. I used a remote control to turn the TV on. Then I accidentally stepped on the remote and destroyed it completely. But the TV was still on. I did not understand why the TV was on even after I destroyed the remote. Called their tech support, they said if I wanted the TV to go off, I have to walk all the way to the TV and press on a designated location with some cryptic icon which they called a "switch". Not swipe, not single or double tap, press with a finger and let go, according to their tech support script. They claim this is the intended behavior.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Well thats just a bunch of horse hockey. If you uninstall an app, it's service related functions should stop. This is just some crazy thing google is doing to keep getting access to your data for analysis. They make money by analyzing everything you do online and with android products. In this instance, it is something they should be shamed for continuing to do after you removed the software.
Google Photos is a different application than backup sync. More at 11.
Discuss
It shouldn't do that, no doubt about it, but ... who in their right mind would install a "Google Photos App" in the first place? Why would you intentionally give Google access to whatever photos you take? Read the TOS... then see if you still want to.
Ignorance is bliss, in a cell phone!
Wait a minute, you got someone from Google on a phone? There are real humans there? Whaaaaaaat?! Brain just exploded.
I'm struggling to think of any company that I trust less than Google. I mean, I don't really "trust" any company, but with Google I specifically distrust them. Anyone who has had to deal with their various press offices around the world will have sensed that there's something creepily wrong with that company. The whole operation screams "go away".
Google provided an interface to another service in an app where a user would logically expect. Rather than disable the same setting he enabled, he uninstalled the app.
It might be nice to put a note that this is controlling another core service, but this doesn't smell like some ominous scheme.
I have a Galaxy S5, and have encountered the same types of problems with the baked-into-the-OS Google services. I have rooted the phone, installed app-ops (useless Google window dressing), and then xposed framework and xprivacy. The level of intrusion and data capture is simply stunning.
The first thing that usually blows people mind is when they visit Google GPS location history page at https://maps.google.com/locati... - even though they weren't aware of it, every move they've made for months has been tracked down to the minute by Google. You can "turn location history off" on that web page, but the GPS is so baked into the OS that this cute web page checkbox is almost guaranteed not stop the continuous GPS gathering. In fact, after blocking location access by GPS, you get a stern warning "enable location services for gps", and the "do not ask again" is greyed out if you do not allow it, you will get nagged regularly.
Your phone is essentially rooted. If it can ring remotely, be located via GPS and be disabled by "find a phone" features, it is not you that has root on the OS. It is the company that can employ that at any time.
The Google intrusion is multifaceted once you start digging in, dozens of different components of the OS that make contact with external servers without documentation. Spending massive time disabling their access to your personal data one by one will usually result in a borked phone. One of those back doors is going to get your data even if you think you turned everything off.
Then we have the Samsung apps that are in full intrusion mode. The health app? Wants your contacts and location. The keyboard software? Wants your contacts and location.
It is of course impossible to use these devices without your entire contact list, phone and text engagement, password list, etc, being scarfed up and sent to the cloud. Any single OS library that has network access can act as a gateway to other components that look like they are otherwise behaving when they access your clipboard, screen, etc.
The biggest problem is not that every aspect of your life is tied together by a corporation, who has recordings of your voice, keystrokes of everything you've typed, pictures of you that are run through facial recognition, etc. It's that this is all going over the wire to a corporation that is too big for one government to reign in. A corporation that has had their internal communications tapped by the NSA. A corporation that "plays ball" with law enforcement by giving them their own handy web portal to data. And of course is all behind one password that can be hacked and cracked on by the entire world of hackers from lawless nation states. Soon coming to a Windows 10 computer near you.
Deleting the app that you used to change a system-level setting used by other apps should NOT change the setting.
That's a reasonable policy, as long as it is absolutely clear in the app that:
1. it was a system-level setting you were changing,
2. the system would continue to honour that setting independent of the app, and
3. you could subsequently turn the system setting off again by doing X independent of the app.
However, if that wasn't clear, and this setting involves uploading data to Google silently and automatically, then the current behaviour is shady as hell. A device that is recording and/or uploading anything without its user's knowledge, or worse when its user explicitly thinks they have turned that behaviour off, is always a usability and privacy issue, and it is always the software developers' responsibility to fix it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Is this the case of an app acting as a filter for a system service, or was this an app that installed a component that was still running as a service in the background? It's not clear from the summary. If it's the former then there needs to be better info displayed to the user about how the functionality of the app with the system service works. If it's the latter, did the OP try to power cycle his phone and see if it still was uploading images? The service may still be running after the app uninstalled because the device needs to be power cycled to remove it.
Take a large sledge hammer and smash your corporate tracking device in a zillion pieces.
I did this. I no longer use mobile devices.
It solved many other problems as well.
The signal to noise ratio dropped incredibly and I get much more done, and I have more valuable time for friends and family.
I have found that if someone wants to contact me, if it is really important, they will make the effort to find me.
I still have a plain old telephone, I still have email, I still have snail-mail, I still live at the same address, I still work at the same office.
I am no longer a digital convenience outlet, and it is extremely liberating.
I noticed that those who are addicted to their devices do not bother me at all, which is also nice as most of them are generally anti-social anyway.
Try it, if it doesnt do you any good you can always join the fuck-me-I-am-the-product rat race again.
Of course like any habit getting off your fix is difficult.
Good luck.
my 2c
Depends on whether you consider cloud backups a thing, or indeed public-facing cloud backups as Google Photos appears to be.
Or, public-facing cloud backups tagged by slowly improving AI on the cusp of deciding whether you are man or ape? http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...
I can see it is embarrassing to Google that its AI is deciding black people are gorillas. Tells you something about who's coding the low levels of this AI as it gathers itself together. It's growing from the bones of things like Google Photos, fed by the wittingly or unwittingly given visual data of the world, and you do have to have imagination to conclude something like Google Photos is a way to steal all your data, whether or not you delete 'the app' that set it transferring all your images to an apparently public-facing server. Hope your selfies aren't too naughty! Who do you think is going to steal them, other humans?
I'm pretty sure they aren't proposing to sell the fruits of this to humans.
Because to Google, "Le Singularity, c'est moi". The intelligence that directs all the self-driving cars, that takes over from all human foibles, is to be THEIRS and so the important thing is simply to get the data and to build the neural networks—so, they are "also working on longer-term fixes around both linguistics - words to be careful about in photos of people - and image recognition itself - eg better recognition of dark-skinned faces" quite literally. That's the purpose of Google Photos and why they'll spend money on cloud servers for the world, asking nothing. Le Singularity, c'est moi.
Whilst it is nice that Skynet will not begin herding black people to special zoos thanks to the timely intervention of the BBC, it is unsettling to get this glimpse of the Singularity forming through actions like these. Black people are gorillas, large dogs are horses, and the personality is being trained through collective input but initially formed by people who will set up an AI to consider some Homo Sapiens as people and others as presentient animals, and think nothing of it until caught at it.
Meet the new boss, I guess.
"Whereas one might reasonably believe uninstalling the app from the phone would stop photos from uploading automatically"
I don't agree with that. I find it silly when a user think their way is the right way and software should follow their way. If it doesn't, it's considered an issue or a bug. My expectation is for it continue to backup until I explicitly indicate that I do not wish for it to continue. Mr. Arnott needs a better understanding of software design and what it means to design for multiple user with different expectation while maintaining your integrity of your software.
Should they make uninstall more clear that it will continue to backup? yes.
Multiple times on the Nexus 5 on Lollipop I have disabled the photos sync and backup toggle in Settings, only to later find it had re-enabled itself. All the more concerning, it does this on my employer-issued Google account. Do organizations that manage Google Apps accounts/domains have control over whether photos sync from their users' personal mobile devices? As of currently, the only certain fix seems to be removing the account from the device entirely, but I use it heavily for work e-mail. In this day and age it's not reasonable to have both a work and a personal phone.
Didn't u know Google DCs acheived self awareness sometime in early 2010s? There hasn't been a human working there for few years now. Its just their AI is so much better at natural speech these days.
If you read the Google Play Services agreement you will find out; Permissions "This app can access the following data on your device." Look at the list. It's EVERYTHING.
Sorry for the OP's issues. For some reason the damn thing WON'T back-up my photos, and I keep getting an annoying pop-up every few days reminding me that it can't back-up the photos. Tradsies?
So you expected the service for free?
This is the same company that the NSA has boasted about having easy access to. The same company that was busted mass collecting MAC hardware addresses(probably in tandem with embedded MAC IDs contained in MS Office documents).
that this level of data collection enables Google Now to serve me very well with updates that I appreciate (traffic and delays along routes that I regularly travel at about this time, events near places I'm likely to be, and so on).
I understand that some prefer that their data not be shared with Google or others. But let's not swing too far the other direction and assume that nobody finds cloud services to be valuable. I, for one, like them very much and am happy to provide Google with as much data about me as possible, in exchange for which it makes my life much, much easier and makes my labor much, much more valuable to me.
It would be one thing if there was no choice about these features, but in fact there is—you are free to disable them and not use them.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
"Don't Get Caught*"
* and when you do, just go, "Oh yeah, um, it's supposed to do that."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
They created this toxic ecosystem of surveillance and theft, Google is just playing 'by the rules'.
Google Photos Uploading Your Pics, Even If You Don't Want It To
No, not even fucking close. If you don't want your photos to be backed up, you turn autobackup off.
All I had to do to turn my phone into a stealth Google Photos uploader was to turn on the backup sync, then uninstall the app. Whereas one might reasonably believe uninstalling the app from the phone would stop photos from uploading automatically to Google Photos, the device still does it even in the app’s absence.
Nope. As others have said, that's a system level setting?
Since making this discovery, I have re-created the issue multiple times in multiple settings on my Galaxy S5.
Because that's how its supposed to work, did you bother to turn off the sync setting?
I reached out to Google, and after reaching someone on the phone and describing the issue, was told to wait for a comment. Several hours later, I received a terse email that said, “The backup was as intended.” If I want to stop it from happening, I was told I'd have to change settings in Google Play Services.
Which is what is expected.
This syncs your photos, not just google photos, because some photos might not be in google photos; people are free to use other applications for their photos and this is designed to play nicely with those apps. Unlike other software companies that say: "If you want to backup to work, you must us XX app we provide, we don't support anything else."
So did Apple of microsoft pay for this misleading hatchet job?
You just gotta stay away from Google.
Let them get into anything and just kiss it goodbye. Assume everything in there has been copied by Google.
Which for Google is a stretch as there are sub ToS's, But with Samsung it's very clear they record and own everything you do. If the author wishes to take this up with Samsung, the Provence in South Korea is clearly given for such undertakings.
I have a Galaxy S5 and am aware of this and still use it, yet I've never used the smart features of my Samsung monitor (but not a problem as it's just a monitor).
Samsung SmartTV Customers Warned Personal Conversations May Be Recorded
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
"Samsung's privacy policy includes details that its Smart TV voice recognition feature may pick up on personal conversations and transmit private communications to third parties. "
Google Photos is one of many apps that can view photos on your device.
The Sync option syncs photos on your device to Google's cloud for you, regardless of whether you have the Google Photos app or any other similar app installed. For example, I use the Xperia app instead... but the synching is in the system settings for a reason. This isn't really hard to understand - at least it shouldn't be difficult for someone who is supposed to be part of the slashdot audience.
Slightly off topic: I've decided never to log into Google on my phone and not to use Google apps wherever possible. For an alternative cloud uploader that lets you keep control over your photos, DAVdroid is great. I use it with Owncloud to auto upload photos and videos as soon as I take them, and additionally sync with my desktop computer for local backup.
Reprogramming users is even better than code
It was all just a matter of time before the computer engineers understood that social engineering is a lot more effective than limiting yourself to data and code. After all, if you can program the peeps as predictably as the data that they generate then you have more control of the environment. Why just work with some of reality when all of reality is far more interesting and valid. The fact that we have not approved, or acknowledged this is precisely why it is so meaningful to Google Labs. Its akin to probing the subconscious firmware, like an Orwellian dream catcher that collects photographic time stamped gps and audio-visual data streams peppered with all social proximity interactions. More importantly, when that data set is believed to be "private" or at least, insignificant, it becomes a more meaningful candor. The idea of gathering large data sets from a society that is unaware of its own unselfconscious existence would make it easy to completely isolate in a controlled environment . Outside influences, individuality or and laws limit the options. Special interests that would tamper, influence, or interpret facts according to their egos and awareness and general state of consciousness in a social context. If we just analyzed the EULA approved data, then we'd just have the "Facebook" view of how things look in public, on the billboard, while making appearances, and appealing to public hegemony, personal prejudiced conceptualizations of status quo. Its the stuff that we don't put on Facebook, the wasted shots that look like crap, the places between destinations, public appearances, and private property where we can learn the truth. Blind spots are revealing because they don't know what can't be seen, and don't paint a picture of what is "real" intended or natural. Our minds are in a constant state of perception and self delusional conceptions. If we think we can actually take control of the truth and interpret reality, then our good intentions meddle with the results. Our ignorance is far more helpful in getting some perspective on how our faulty thinking interferes with the code set as much as it helps. Google's arrogance is simply counterpoint to our ignorance. And either state of mind . whether sentience or prevarication, or lucid dreaming , or imagination - will take itself far more seriously than anything else in the universe that occupy our mind.
...and neither can we, unless we rewrite the EULA.
IF uninstalling THEN turn off the fucking service.
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close your blinds/curtains for privacy. This is not new, and it is not rocket science.
You would apparently prefer that all windows be banned?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW