Privacy

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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Google Photos app uploaded all my locally saved pictures completely against my will (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by RealM__@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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.

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[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thx, I'll check that tool. Not an expert, so you know ;)

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It has a GUI, and clearly shows what apps can be safely removed versus whst apos are load-bearing.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 3 weeks ago

Thx! I will do that :)