Google’s ‘Secret’ Update Scans All Your Photos—One Click Stops It
www.forbes.com
AI now monitors your photos without warning.

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.”

  • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    322·
    9 days ago

    To quote the most salient post

    The app doesn’t provide client-side scanning used to report things to Google or anyone else. It provides on-device machine learning models usable by applications to classify content as being spam, scams, malware, etc. This allows apps to check content locally without sharing it with a service and mark it with warnings for users.

    Which is a sorely needed feature to tackle problems like SMS scams

    • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      9 days ago

      You don’t need advanced scanning technology running on every device with access to every single bit of data you ever seen to detect scam. You need telco operator to stop forwarding forged messages headers and… that’s it. Cheap, efficient, zero risk related to invasion of privacy through a piece of software you did not need but was put there “for your own good”.

      • zlatko@programming.devEnglish
        3·
        9 days ago

        I will perhaps be nitpicking, but… not exactly, not always. People get their shit hacked all the time due to poor practices. And then those hacked things can send emails and texts and other spam all they want, and it’ll not be forged headers, so you still need spam filtering.