alt Hacker NewsWhat I find confusing is that I know an infinite plethora of companies have geolocation data in everyone.... But I look at my fairly-stock Pixel phone and the only things with background geolocation permissions are Google apps, and I know google famously hoards that data like a dragon.
Is it just that people are happily allowing every app access to live geoloc data even in background? Is there some edge where "while in use" apps are "in use" during cases you wouldn't think they are? Is it my Samsung watch?
The cellular companies themselves are a source for this, as they don't even need GPS or app permissions to triangulate your rough location.
Apps that have access to look for networks can also be used to infer location. E.g., combine multiple known WiFi SSIDs or Bluetooth devices together and you can get a rough location.
Also, most people just hit "accept" for a whole bunch of app permissions and just forget about it. The fact that you even know which apps have which permissions at all means you are almost certainly more careful than the average person, even though you are saying this in the context of a stock Pixel phone.
And, oh yeah, most people have much more invasive Android phone brands than Pixel...cheap phones with a bunch of carrier/advertising partner spyware sell far better than Google's phones. Does Samsung still install the Facebook app by default like they used to? I think it used to be impossible to fully delete, even!