Privacy comparison: Google location svcs vs Apple maps

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/13155149

other people’s iPhones more intrusive than other people’s droids

According to the linked research, all iPhones are spying on everyone within Wi-Fi range. If your phone of any kind is squawking wi-fi, all in-range iPhones are grabbing various bits of data like your MAC address and the SSIDs your phone normally looks for (e.g. your home SSID) and reports that back to Apple along with time and location data. The same study could not say the same for Google. So other people’s iPhones are more of a privacy intrusion to you than other people’s droids.

your own iPhone is less intrusive than your own droid when navigating

However, another study shows an inversion between Apple and Google when it comes to what you own and use for navigation. If you use an iPhone for navigation, the iPhone will only send one or two BSSIDs near you to Apple’s server, and the server then floods you with detailed information about other possible BSSIDs around you and their position, so your own device computes your precise location, not Apple’s servers.

Whereas if you navigate using Google’s location services, your device feeds everything to Google and Google’s server does all the work, computes your precise location, and tells you. This is of course more intrusive because Google learns your precise location and time, and (IMO) is likely interested in whatever shop you might be in.

These two studies actually seem superficially contradictory. But there is a difference between ratting out other portable devices and reporting stationary devices.

free-world proponents might be able to exploit Apple for better nav

In any case, the take-away for people living in the free world: forget about using Google Location Services to improve your navigation if you do not want to feed Google your precise location. OTOH, there seems to at least be a theoretical possibility for people not pawned by tech giants to use Apple’s API to get better-than-GPS navigation. Though I suspect it would mean many people would have to share someone’s sacrificial Apple account or get burner accounts.

I’m always on the look out for ways to improve my shitty navigation on a deGoogled phone that’s limited to a slow energy hungry GPS receiver -- without feeding the baddies.