The problem with those crazy ideas about cellphones and Big Brother is that, occasionally, it turns out they were right. If you are an Android phone user the chances are that you have used your Google account to log in to the store, sync your emails, and all that good stuff. I certainly have, on two distinct phones and another brace of Android tablets.
And, I’ve been travelling – oh boy, have I ever been travelling. 50,000 air miles since last September, up and down to Cornwall, over to the Hague a couple of times, down to Switzerland, and in the last couple of weeks, chugging down the Canal de Borgogne at 5km/h. In all those places, my ancient but sturdy Moto XT890 has come with me.
So I was kind of disappointed to find that when I logged in, with the same account as the phone uses, at the Google Maps Location History page: I got absolutely zip. Zero. Nothing. The web has recently exploded with panicky sites showing snippets of Google Map output garnished with red lines and stopping points denoting users whereabouts with creepy accuracy, worthy of the most intense Hollywood spy thriller – but not for me.
Why might this be?
The answers appear to be half technological and half personal. First of all, for those of you who have broken out in a cold sweat at the idea of your movements being traceable, go directly to the Account History page and turn the setting on or off, as suits your circumstances. Traditionally I would put up a screen-shot here for everyone’s amusement, but I’ve already claimed I don’t have a trackable history, and I’m pretty sure everyone reading knows what a map of the world looks like. Besides – the nature of the problem is not the simple truth about switching a feature on or off: it’s the way the information about this apparent privacy crisis is being disseminated. A simple yes/no checkbox which would, five years ago, have been a matter for a quick tweet or a footnote in a blog is now grounds for man-years of effort. Those who believe that the megacorporations are watching us all have something new to chew over, either because the feature is there at all, or because there are evidently plenty of people who have come to their phone/Google Account combination and found location tracking already turned on.
This is the human factor bit. The bit where any social group breaks up into the nerds and the antinerds, and where technology becomes a means for status to be claimed or pecking orders to be established. Most of the sites I’ve been looking at to get an overall view of this issue carefully sidestep just how the setting came on, and move smartly on too how to turn it off. The facts as far as I can see them now are that earlier versions of Android don’t have the location-reporting flag turned on by default, but that a wide variety of apps and add-ons might well show a user a dialog requesting a wide variety of ancillary features, including location tracking. This is how you end up with tolerantly amused aunts & uncles, staring at you like they do at an especially large spider in the bath, when you tell them that this is an unusually subtle global conspiracy because all it does is fool them into agreeing to something.
Is it the case that Google know people won’t read the warnings before they unwittingly turn on the tracking? Is it that tracking *is* on for newer accounts and phones, but off for those older early adopter types like me (and very likely, you)? Or is it that Google are all such mega nerds that they expect everyone to revisit their configurations for cheeky sneaky little feature flip-switches every week? The current state of information sharing about issues like these makes it incredibly hard to figure out how to respond to all the hype.
Though at the very simplest level: just follow that link and turn the thing off, if it bothers you. I’m just off to print up a load of t-shirts that say “KEEP CALM and TURN OFF LOCATION TRACKING”.
