Why care about what Google know about you, in case of domestic abuse ?

It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.

There are many reasons to get rid of Google altogether, I just don't understand this one.

Cider9986 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Any data collected can be abused. This is like saying why care about what flock knows about you, when it's been used by far too many police to stalk their romantic interests.

Police can obtain data from Google. Police can be abusers or friends with abusers.

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poly2it 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So that your abuser cannot obtain real-time information about you via integrated accounts.

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nyargh 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You should google 40% of police..

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fragmede 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.

No, that's exactly the fear. With enough disclaimers and third parties involved, a motivated, highly intelligent and rich attacker with the right connections could get that information.

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izacus 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Explain how (in comparison to GrapheneOS) please.

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Cider9986 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Zero Google services ship by default.

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izacus an hour ago | parent [-]

I meant - explain how would that data retrieval actually happen in real life for a domestic abuser.

	▲	inigyou 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Abuser calls police and says the victim did some crime, police subpoena Google for location history.

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chmod775 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Here's an article explaining why one should care: https://privacypros.com.au/privacy-hub/articles/dv-safe-phon...

The tl;dr is that you can either share this data by accident through some sort of "locate my family" app, or because your abuser gets access to your Google/Apple account (for instance because you're signed in on another device they have access to).

The threat model here can be: domestic abuse victim flees a situation at home in a hurry, stays signed in on a computer. Abuser uses the sign-in on that computer to track their phone, figures out they're staying at their aunt's place.

Yes, you can avoid this on a regular Google phone as well, but that requires correctly configuring it (and a lot, such as location and search history, can be re-enabled remotely!). If you're running Graphene you are protected by default, rather than compromised by default.

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aucisson_masque 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Even on grapheneos you got to install the play store and play services to get most app to work, which mean connecting to a Google account.

Technically you can use fdroid, Aurora store, or only use stock applications but if we are serious, not all domestic abuse victims are also geeks that know how to do all these things.

They will need their apps, for instance for social security. Also, many people use their phone to pay nowadays, can't do on grapheneos.

Domestic abuse is a serious threat and people are motivated to stay away from their abusers, but if you give them something so barebone that they can't do 90% of their stuff, a significant percentage of them will revert to their old behavior and risk compromising themselves. For instance, buying a second phone and connecting it to the old Google account just to browse tiktok.

	▲	StingyJelly 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They don't need completely bare-bones setup. Sweet spot for non-geeks is installing play services, which can be used without signing into an account and by default have invasive permissions revoked. Then installing playstore apps from aurora store.
	▲	Cider9986 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Play store is not a significant privacy risk. It is a huge improvement being sandboxed, not installed by default, not given permissions by default. Grapheneos has 99.99% app compatibility and over 90% of banking apps are compatible.