Per one tech forum this week: “Google has quietly installed an app on all Android devices called ‘Android System SafetyCore’. It claims to be a ‘security’ application, but whilst running in the background, it collects call logs, contacts, location, your microphone, and much more making this application ‘spyware’ and a HUGE privacy concern. It is strongly advised to uninstall this program if you can. To do this, navigate to 'Settings’ > 'Apps’, then delete the application.”

  • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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    12 hours ago

    Do we have any proof of it doing anything bad?

    Taking Google’s description of what it is it seems like a good thing. Of course we should absolutely assume Google is lying and it actually does something nefarious, but we should get some proof before picking up the pitchforks.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Whether the people at Google who did this knows they are evil or thinks they are not evil doesn’t really even matter. Having a phone app that automatically scans all your photos should scare the shit out of you. At the very least it wastes your battery and slows down your phone.

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        If it provided a feature to automatically block incoming dick pics, which Google claims it’s for, was fully local, and only scanned incoming messages, not my own gallery, which is what Google claims, I would likely find it useful. There is nothing wrong with the idea in general.

        At the very least it wastes your battery

        Again, if it’s an optional feature that you can choose to turn on or off, there is nothing wrong with that.

    • Fair Fairy@thelemmy.club
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      11 hours ago

      Google is always 100% lying.
      There are too many instances to list and I’m not spending 5 hours collecting examples for you.
      They removed don’t be evil long time ago

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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        10 hours ago

        They removed don’t be evil long time ago

        See, this is why I like proof. If you go to Google’s Code of Conduct today, or any other archived version, you can see yourself that it was never removed. Yet everyone believed the clickbait articles claiming so. What happened is they moved it from the header to the footer, clickbait media reported that as “removed” and everyone ran with it, even though anyone can easily see it’s not true, and it takes 30 seconds to verify, not even 5 hours.

        Years later you are still repeating something that was made up just because you heard it a lot.

        Of course Google is absolutely evil and the phrase was always meaningless whether it’s there or not, but we can’t just make up facts just because it fits our world view. And we have to be aware of confirmation bias. Yeah Google removing “don’t be evil” sounds about right for them, right? It makes perfect sense. But it just plain didn’t happen.

      • Kangy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 hours ago

        Maybe you should given your closing sentence is incorrect and just bolsters the fact we shouldn’t blindly take everything we see at face value