this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Google’s ‘Secret’ Update Scans All Your Photos (www.forbes.com)
submitted 1 day ago by ad_on_is@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
257 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Per one tech forum this week: “Google has quietly installed an app on all Android devices called ‘Android System SafetyCore’. It claims to be a ‘security’ application, but whilst running in the background, it collects call logs, contacts, location, your microphone, and much more making this application ‘spyware’ and a HUGE privacy concern. It is strongly advised to uninstall this program if you can. To do this, navigate to 'Settings’ > 'Apps’, then delete the application.”

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[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Do we have any proof of it doing anything bad?

Taking Google's description of what it is it seems like a good thing. Of course we should absolutely assume Google is lying and it actually does something nefarious, but we should get some proof before picking up the pitchforks.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 1 points 20 minutes ago

Whether the people at Google who did this knows they are evil or thinks they are not evil doesn't really even matter. Having a phone app that automatically scans all your photos should scare the shit out of you. At the very least it wastes your battery and slows down your phone.

[–] sommerset@thelemmy.club 7 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (3 children)

Google is always 100% lying.
There are too many instances to list and I'm not spending 5 hours collecting examples for you.
They removed don't be evil long time ago

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

They removed don’t be evil long time ago

See, this is why I like proof. If you go to Google's Code of Conduct today, or any other archived version, you can see yourself that it was never removed. Yet everyone believed the clickbait articles claiming so. What happened is they moved it from the header to the footer, clickbait media reported that as "removed" and everyone ran with it, even though anyone can easily see it's not true, and it takes 30 seconds to verify, not even 5 hours.

Years later you are still repeating something that was made up just because you heard it a lot.

Of course Google is absolutely evil and the phrase was always meaningless whether it's there or not, but we can't just make up facts just because it fits our world view. And we have to be aware of confirmation bias. Yeah Google removing "don't be evil" sounds about right for them, right? It makes perfect sense. But it just plain didn't happen.

[–] Kangy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Maybe you should given your closing sentence is incorrect and just bolsters the fact we shouldn't blindly take everything we see at face value

[–] tame@dormi.zone 3 points 6 hours ago

Why check any sources first when you can just blindly rage and assume the worst?

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113969399311251057