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.
Where’s the article to this story?
There’s no article - this is something that happened to me personally, today. I needed an outlet and wanted some advice what to do about this, and I’m really happy about the responses I’ve gotten.
Yes, but you’re just screaming into an ephemeral void.
You could actually make google pay for this if you wrote an article about this on substack and then linked to it here.
Google has already paid over a billion dollars for GDPR violations. They do change their behavior as a result of such reporting and legal consequences.
Op should deff fight back but let’s temper the expectations here… Realistically nothing will happen.
But yes it should be documented
Google specially has been fined over a billion dollars. GDPR law suits and financial consequences are very realistic
In FY 23-24 google made over $340B I dont think they mind
Of course they mind. Because they changed their behavior. Else, the billion dollar fines would repeat over-and-over.
I’m sorry. There’s really no way to undo this. Grieving and and moving on is the only option, and I am not being sarcastic. If my privacy was violated like that by google, I would be very upset and would grieve. Even if you complain, they won’t remove it from AI training or whatever they intend to do, even if they lie and say they will. Librem 5’s have no google in them if you want to switch to something else. FuriLabs also make a Debian smartphone.
fairphones can also run custom roms. with calyxos the bootloader can even be relocked for security, it’s done by the installer. that way google services are optional
If you disable Google photos storage access you don’t even have a camera roll :/
That’s how embedded the damn thing is
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.
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.
Just don’t install gapps. Its missing by default when you install the OS…
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.
Google Photos fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software.
What did you expect? LMAOO
Use /e/OS officially supported on fair phone 5
/e/OS is a good option to regain privacy from Google, but arguably does some things worse in terms of security than stock.
You can find a good comparison here.
For the Fairphone 5, I’d recommend CalyxOS as soon as they’re back from their hiatus. In the meantime, might as well stick with stock.
If you were using Photos as a photo roll app you need to stay angry at yourself a while longer. That’s on you when you should know you cannot trust the G. Don’t grant an app permissions to photos and videos that could sync it to the cloud. And as another precaution, don’t keep sensitive pictures in the DCIM folder. If I have to take pictures of sensitive documents like that I disable WiFi (sync set up on WiFi only), take the picture, move it to a folder that’s never backed up elsewhere on my phone, and then turn WiFi back on.
You are not normal because you care about these things. The normal user doesn’t care and that’s who they are catering for. I’m not excusing their behavior (I don’t like it either) and at the same time you need to be more on your toes.
I’m planning to move to Ente this year when my Google cloud subscription runs out. Not looking forward to the work it entails but to the [paints face blue] FREEDOM!
does it even request your permission? I mean, isn’t it granted by default? It’s been a long time I factory reset a typic consumer phone brand
deleted by creator
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.
install e/os:
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5
or:
CalyxOS releases are paused, but when they are back: https://calyxos.org/
e/os is most likely my next step, especially with Google disabling installing “unverified” third-party apps in 2026.
Bought a FP5 with e/os in mind as a possible upgrade path, I just was too worried to immediately do the full jump.
Yes, I’ve installed e/os on my fairphone 5 and it just works. I even got my banking apps to work.
Hmm… I wonder… does GrapheneOS work on the Fairphone?
They don’t and in their typical style they’ve written a very verbose post or two on why
Huh, link to their explanation?
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
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.
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
Event like this is what got me radicalized
I won 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.
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.
Thx, I’ll check that tool. Not an expert, so you know ;)
It has a GUI, and clearly shows what apps can be safely removed versus whst apos are load-bearing.
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 ;)
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.
Does it allow you to remove gapps?
Yes of course.
Edit: Lot of third-party apps rely on Google Play Services, so removing this is not recommended.
why not Canta?
Oh that’s nice. No need for the computer then.
That’s why I tend to stick to Apple. They’re both evil, just one is a little bit less evil.
Apple is worse for security, and therefore worse for privacy.
Apple does the exact same thing
Apple announced plans last year to scan iCloud Photos for known sexually abusive depictions of children, but the rollout was delayed indefinitely after resistance from privacy groups.
That’s from the article. But the article is from 2023 so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s changed.
Tell me, what should people use instead? Should I train my own pigeon to send messages?
Yes.
You’re not wrong; people are just tribalistic.
Only thing now evil than Apple is Microsoft.
Yes, and they and apple keep saying it’s all done locally. Because trust me bro!
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.
