I’ve gotten a new phone and setting it up for the past few days - a Fairphone 5 with Android installed. So obviously, this means I can’t escape Googles clutches. Sure, whatever.

I have been VERY adamant about pressing “No” on all prompts, that try to get me to try something out or use some dumb service. I do not want any AI tool or similar to go through my files.

Yet, while perousing the depths of my system settings, I realized Google Photos was using a suspicous amount of storage. Somehow, it had “synchronized” ALL my locally saved pictures - this included pictures of my vacations, my drivers license, private pictures I would have rather not shared, and so on…

And while checking the Google Photos App for the damage done, obviously it had already automatically generated “previews” and “albums” for me, neatly organized.

IT HAD AUTOMATICALLY ANALYSED MY DRIVERS LICENSE AND SAVED IT INTO AN ALBUM CALLED “Identity-related”

How the fuck is this legal? I am so mad at myself right now. I’m usually so fuckin cautious about denying any sort of pop-up and setting all settings as strictly as possible.

So obviously I just had to spent 2 hours figuring out how to turn this “synchronization” off, and how to delete all photos in google photos - spoiler alert: There is no “Delete All” button. You have to manually select every single fucking image.

Sorry for the rant, I hope it’s not too off-topic. I’m just so mad right now.

  • Autonomous User@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    Google Photos fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software.

    What did you expect? LMAOO

  • Seefra 1@lemmy.zip
    1·
    4 months ago

    a Fairphone 5 with Android installed. So obviously, this means I can’t escape Googles clutches

    If you have a Fairphone then you can escape Google, Fairphones are one of the few phones that support third party ROMs. If they weren’t so expensive I would buy one myself.

    https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/FP5/

  • LordCrom@lemmy.world
    1·
    4 months ago

    Ya. I’m sorry for you.

    Problem is, even if you delete the Images, Google has already scraped them for info on you and used your Google account and phone number to tie it all together to further its data aggregation profile on you.

  • nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de
    1·
    4 months ago

    Yes, this happens. Even if you turn off all the syncing etc, they will shoot an update and all your settings will revert to default. This has happened with my father’s phone a lot.

    And even if you keep all these settings off, they are still scanning all photos to check for CSAM.

    I highly recommend deGoogling your phone. If you cannot install a custom ROM, check out Universal Android Debloater. There are many sources for degoogling your life. Check out c/degoogle on Lemmy (I forgot the instance name, just search for it). Or if you want we have small group on Signal for deGoogling related talks, DM me and I can share the link to join. (Signal does require a phone number to register, but since usernames are a thing your phone number will not be available publicly.) That group link is disabled, but I can share other group links like Linux and FOSS, or other privacy related groups.

            • Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world
              1·
              4 months ago

              I don’t but its been posted a couple of times on Mastodon, I assume its on their blog and in their forms too.

              The jist is Fairphone doesn’t have the security HW to run it

              • Telex@sopuli.xyz
                1·
                4 months ago

                Would be nice if fairphone was in talks of making sure that adequate hardware will be in next version. That would benefit both projects even if they didn’t offer official support.

                I’ll guessing the problem will be the chipset vendor.

                • Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  4 months ago

                  The GrapheneOS folks said they are working with an ODM to put out their own phone in the future.

                  I’m happy with it on my used Pixel 8 Pro but if they offered a phone I’d probably get one

  • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I own an Android phone, for a single app I need to have access to. It’s a Redmi something. I could not find a way to just uninstall their own ‘Gallery’ app nor the Google Photos app so I removed their access to any file. I hope this is enough but I don’t know that.

    I thought Android was all about choice (against iOS, which is my default phone) but this was not very convincing. I may have missed a way to easily uninstall any app, though? I would like to replace them with f-droid alternative apps so there won’t be any risk they access the little data I’ve stored on that phone.

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      4 months ago

      It’s a Redmi something.

      If it is still using the default OS (HyperOS / MiUI), you can uninstall both the Xiaomi and Google Photos apps. The easiest method nowadays is to install Universal Android Debloater on to your computer (any OS), connect your phone to it, enable USB debugging on the phone, and remove the apps you don’t want.

          • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            Update: I tested it, and it seems to be working as expected. Now, I just need to make sure what apps on the phone correspond to those listed since they don’t display the same name and I would not want to remove anything I should not. Thx again ;)

            • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              4 months ago

              Ah, sorry. On the phone, open Settings and go Apps -> Manage Apps. Then choose an app and click the three dots on the top right. Select App Info, and look under App Name. This is equivalent to what UAD shows.

  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    0·
    4 months ago

    Email their data protection officer and the government. They may get fined hundreds of millions of dollars for this

  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
    01·
    4 months ago

    What proof do you have that you in fact pressed no ?

    Also, didn’t you press I agree to anything that gives google indemnity against any of this when you first turned on the phone ?

    I think you would need a complete video recording from fresh firmware wipe to the action you describe happening, to establish it is or isn’t happening.

    Google will have make sure that proving them in the wrong takes a whole lot of effort