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·
    5 days 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·
    7 days 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/

  • nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de
    50·
    8 days 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.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      232·
      8 days ago

      There not even checking for CSAM

      That would be near impossIble considering the tech. Even on a normal portrait is hard to judge the age on. Let alone fotos with more complex perspectives and only some body parts visible.

      What they are doing is using hashes of specific real pictures that the police know are commonly shared.

      Theoretically it could catch some careless content consuming offenders. The worst offenders, that produce new material, are beyond the scope.

      But also, obvious what google gets is just the hashcodes and not the actual pics. If the police gave google a hash to target for pics of vances bald head or (trans-positive) memes who would know?

      • nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de
        26·
        8 days ago

        There was a news some time ago, that a man was arrested for clicking nude pictures of children, later it was found out that he was sending pictures of his child to a doctor for diagnosis. How did that happen?

        I’ll link the source if I find it.

        Update:

        NYTimes - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

        Paywall removed - https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

        • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          1·
          7 days ago

          A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions, even though law enforcement cleared the two men.

          They are literally too big to care.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
          21·
          8 days ago

          That must be some other system indeed.

          They don’t really provide much information from how the images were actually shared though.

          Maybe there is a machine learning algorithm that is trained to detect specific features in a random photo but i cant imagine it being accurate without frequent false possibles.

          Could be that if you have a certain amount of “plausible” hits then a google employee has to review them manually and they quickly Judged it wrongly?

          Though that technically implies your Private medical picture is now seen and possibly covertly copied by a (rogue) employee.

          • quick_snail@feddit.nl
            2·
            8 days ago

            They don’t manually review. They just shutdown your account and you can’t contact them. See my other comment

          • witness_me@lemmy.ml
            2·
            7 days ago

            It’s been well documented.

            False positives don’t matter, and there’s no human to talk to when it occurs.

      • quick_snail@feddit.nl
        3·
        8 days ago

        False positives are a thing. They do scan all your photos for csam. Poorly.

        We know this because of the article during the pandemic when a dude sent a photo of his son’s dick to a doctor (it had an infection and the doctor asked to see it). Dude lost access to his entire google account. Lost everything. Emails, files, everything. It wasn’t a hash.

    • Substance_P@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      8 days ago

      I appreciate your comment, replying here for reference, perhaps I’d like to join that signal channel. Being staunchly anti-google I feel I’m on top of things, but my Gmail is used across many of my logins. With the scanning for CSAM issue, many people don’t realize that Google installs a hidden app called safetycore, for me it gets reinstalled on every update.

      https://allthings.how/what-is-android-system-safetycore-and-why-did-it-appear-on-your-phone-2/

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
    256·
    8 days ago

    Not against your will, you accepted this and more in the TOS of your account. But you can avoid it in the permission settings in your phone.

    The second biggest lie in Internet: “I’ve read the Privacy Policies and Terms of Service” the first one “We respect the privacy of the user”.

    https://neal.fun/dark-patterns/

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      21·
      8 days ago

      The lesson here is don’t deal with rapists if you care not to get raped.

      This is the stage of priavcy in 2025 folks.

      It is victims obligation to avoid the rapist and if it rapes youz it is your fault

    • quick_snail@feddit.nl
      1·
      8 days ago

      It’s still probably illegal (violation of GDPR). They can’t hide that shit in a ToS without it being off by default.

      • Zerush@lemmy.ml
        2·
        8 days ago

        That is the point, not a big deal to block this in the EU, due to the GDPR, but for users in the US it’s sadly different, there Google can almost do what it want.

        • quick_snail@feddit.nl
          2·
          8 days ago

          Just change your locale to EU. Boom, they follow GDPR (or suffer massive legal and financial consequences, if not)

          • Zerush@lemmy.ml
            1·
            8 days ago

            That is the point, or change direct o EU alternatives to store your photos and data, eg. Filen, 10 GB for free, client-side encrypted, no-knowledge, redundant storing, OpenSource, selfhosteable. All servers are located in Tier III-IV, ISO 27001-certified data centers within Germany.

  • Lojcs@piefed.socialEnglish
    16·
    8 days ago

    Same thing happened to me, and there is a delete all button. Go to Google photos > top right profile pic > backup is off (or whatever it says when it’s on) > top right gear > undo backup for this device.

  • LordCrom@lemmy.world
    13·
    7 days 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.

  • nelson@lemmy.world
    121·
    8 days ago

    If you disable Google photos storage access you don’t even have a camera roll :/

    That’s how embedded the damn thing is

    • Quibblekrust@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      3·
      8 days ago

      You don’t really need a camera roll. Just use your normal gallery after taking pics.

      You can disable Google Photos outright. No need to play with permissions.

    • Novaling@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      Oh damn really? I was just about to tell OP why didn’t they just delete Google Photos and use something like Aves instead. But if disabling/deleting the app disables camera roll then that’s total bullshit. That should be like lawsuit worthy, I shouldn’t have to use your app to have pictures, especially when that service is doing sneaky uploads.

      • nelson@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 days ago

        I just checked,

        google photos has permanent access to photos and videos. If you disable the app the camera roll no longer works. I get “activity not found”.

        Maybe with a FOSS camera app it might still work? I haven’t tried.

        Edit: and that is the only permission which it has ( photos and videos ). Everything else ( location, contacts, … ) is not allowed. But that one permission is auto permanently allowed.

  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    11·
    8 days ago

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

  • Eternal192@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    10·
    8 days ago

    Have some dic pics that were uploaded that i sent to my gf when we started dating and i’m glad i didn’t delete them because now they have to look at my junk every time they decide to go snooping around where they shouldn’t.

    • quick_snail@feddit.nl
      18·
      8 days ago

      Did they also suck up photos of your gf?

      If yes, you’re an asshole for leaking nudes of someone else to a third party.

      If no, you’re an asshole because you sent dick pics to someone and they weren’t into it.

  • NarrativeBear@lemmy.world
    9·
    8 days ago

    Check out Aves Libre on F-Droid

    I had to ditch Google Photos app because of my paranoia, about this exact same thing that happened to you.

        • basic_user@lemmy.world
          2·
          8 days ago

          Well when trying to install the latest APK (don’t have fdroid) I just get a message that it didn’t install because my system is not supported?

          • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
            1·
            8 days ago

            It works fine from the developer build. Better not use the app signed by F-Droid. Also there are two releases of Aves: Aves Gallery and Aves Gallery Libre

            Best experience you’ll have is from Accrescent

              • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
                1·
                7 days ago

                What’s the point with what I said? The official repo has apps that are not signed by the developer but by this third party (repo mainteners)