Google Android tracks users even when location services are deactivated

Most of the tech giants of today are in the business of data so it's probably not a surprise that they capture as much as they can. Google is in the news this week as Quartz discovered that the search giant is keeping close tabs on users of its Android operating system.

The site found out that Google receives data about your location and your movement, even if you've turned off location services, haven't used any apps, and haven't even inserted a SIM card. This is because since the start of this year, Android started collecting data of nearby cellular towers, and this information is send back to Google.

When confronted with the findings, Google claims this data was never used or stored. A Google spokesperson promised this feature will be turned off by the end of this month:

The cell tower addresses have been included in information sent to the system Google uses to manage push notifications and messages on Android phones for the past 11 months, according to a Google spokesperson. They were never used or stored, the spokesperson said, and the company is now taking steps to end the practice after being contacted by Quartz. By the end of November, the company said, Android phones will no longer send cell-tower location data to Google, at least as part of this particular service, which consumers cannot disable.

“In January of this year, we began looking into using Cell ID codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery,” the Google spokesperson said in an email. “However, we never incorporated Cell ID into our network sync system, so that data was immediately discarded, and we updated it to no longer request Cell ID.”

Quartz says it's not clear how this data could be used to improve message delivery, but notes the privacy threat is pretty clear as addresses of cell towers can be used to pinpoint a user's location. In rural areas this triangulation works out to an approximation of a quarter-mile radius, but more accurate pinpoints are possible in urban areas.