New Google Spware? Probably.

[reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Turns out it was on my phone too. Uninstalled and reported as inappropriate. Fuck Google

[zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Also deceptive for them to list it on the Play Store as having 500,000,000 "downloads", when the vast majority of those are non-consensual automatic installations.

[onyxjet@lemmy.world]

I guess "downloads" are really just how many phones have it.

[whatamlemmy@lemmy.world]

This is why I have all auto updates turned off, and just do it manually once every week or so. Corporations can never be trusted.

[dmtalon@infosec.pub]

I'm the same but clearly got lazy and either ok'd it or It still snuck past since it was installed on my phone.

[telorand@reddthat.com]

Weird, it's not on my phone (yet?), and I have a Pixel 9. Maybe I'll be in a later rollout.

Well, I was already building a list of things to prepare for backup so I can migrate to GrapheneOS. I guess this puts more priority on it.

I do wonder, though. Does it work on encrypted chat apps like Signal? Seems like it shouldn't, but maybe it works differently.

[jackthelad@lemmy.world]

One positive is that they at least allow you to uninstall it.

Which I've just done because I didn't even know it existed and it certainly didn't show up in the Play Store at any point.

[ultimate@lemm.ee]

I get it that Google is being in appropriately intrusive here.

But honestly outside the privacy bubble most people won't really care about it. In fact they'd be happy to have it automatically installed for them.

I get it that we don't like it. But most of the population don't seem to care.

Also is this like a separate app or is it baked into Google services?

[pumastolemybluff@lemmy.world]

Doesn't a stock Android installation come with several dozen apps? Do you expect to consent to each one individually?

[muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee]

Sound a lot like client side scanning. This can be so easily used to do mass surveillance and censorship. It also makes any encryption in RCS completely useless.

Use GrapheneOS its great

[tekato@lemmy.world]

The app doesn’t connect to the internet, so it’s not that big of a deal. I guess that could change in the future though.

[transsynthesist@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Y'all don't download a FOSS messaging app from Fdroid?

[cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

People need to learn what on device processing is.

[someone@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Time to switch to GrapheneOS. Well it has been for a long time.

[onyxjet@lemmy.world]

It may only be for SMS or google messages. It isn't really clear.

[umbrella@lemmy.ml]

the important question that needs answers is how the fuck do i block it.

[onyxjet@lemmy.world]

My device has the ability to disable the WiFi + mobile data option for it.

However for apps that actually dont have internet access, they won't show up in this list.

[tekato@lemmy.world]

You are complaining about the photo monitoring functionality, which happens 100% on device. You can confirm this very easily by monitoring the app’s network activity when you receive an image. Android System SafetyCore does a lot more things than photo monitoring, one of which is providing emergency location data (ELS). This is required by law in the EU, India, and the USA.