Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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I am genuinely horrified to see how much data google collected from me (self.privacy)

submitted 6 months ago by sidgames5 to c/[email protected]

186 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I created a google takeout and in that zip file I found some files containing a ton of data about me. It has logged every single page I visited while using the google search engine and chrome browser. It even logged every single time I opened an app on my old android phone. It even has VOICE RECORDINGS of me and a log of every time I used google assistant. This is just some of the data and I'm very sure there is even more data they have.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

How do you do this?

I have a few dozen google accounts, but most of them I'm locked out of. Even if I enter the correct username and password on the first try, google says I can't login because I never associated a phone number to the account.

How can I get this data?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

takeout.google.com

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

That only works if you can log in. Otherwise, it would be a massive privacy problem since anyone could takeout anyone's data.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That tells me to login

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Have the same issue on one of my accounts. I can login but when I try to do anything, I need to verify by getting a code over SMS. The thing is, the phone number on that account is an old one I don't have access to anymore. There is no other verification option, I can't delete it from my account without verification and I'm definitely not adding my actual number.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Probably a GDPR data request

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Hmm, wouldn't that make it worse? Because then you have to give your real name, no?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

No, most sites have a button stashed in some submenu of the account page that allows you to request your data. It’s either a legal requirement of the GDPR or they just don’t want to deals with individual email requests, I’m not exactly sure.

It usually does take a lot of time for the request to be “processed”, you usually get an email with a zip archive after about a week. I’m not sure if that’s malicious compliance.

You can also send a GDPR request to have them delete all your data, but they do have 1 month to comply and in my experience most services do take that long to “process” your request.

Keep in mind that many services hide these options for non-EU citizens.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

As if Google doesn't already know.