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  • C.Suthorn :prn:Life_is@no-pony.farm
    Aug 1, 2025, 1:11 AM
    @CoMaps@floss.social

    The settings offer the option to use ‘Google Fused Location Services’. I assume this is so that this Google service can still be used even if it is disabled in the Android settings. @GrapheneOS offers an alternative #locationService. It would be nice if #comaps could use the #grapheneos location service in addition to the Google location service.

    In den Einstellungen wird die Verwendung von "Google Fused Standortdienste" angeboten. Ich nehme an, dies dient dazu, diesen Googledienst auch dann zu verwenden, wenn er in den Android-Einstellungen deaktiviert ist. @GrapheneOS bietet einen alternativen #Standortdienst an. Es wäre schön, wenn #comaps zusätzlich zum Google Standortdienst auch den Standortdienst von #grapheneos benutzen könnte.

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Replies

  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:23 AM

    @Life_is @CoMaps On Android 15 and later, they could always use the OS provided fused location service and phase out using the Play services API directly. It will use the Play services backend on an OS integrating Play services.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 8:02 AM

    @Life_is @CoMaps @GrapheneOS
    I'm curious what the GrapheneOS location service offers that GPS doesn't.

    Google location service tracks you, but GrapheneOS is supposed not to, so I guess it would offer something else?

    Also, does it not use the same API, and thus the same setting?

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  • C.Suthorn :prn:Life_is@no-pony.farm
    Aug 1, 2025, 8:52 AM
    @leeloo@chaosfem.tw @CoMaps@floss.social @GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social

    GNSS (globale satelliten gestützte Navigationssysteme) wie GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Compass sind eine Möglichkeit der Positionsbestimmung unter Android.

    GNSS haben aber nur eine beschränkte Genauigkeit und sind nicht immer verfügbar (zB in einem Haus).

    Daher bieten Google und Apple ein alternatives System an: Das Gerät empfängt die IDs von Wifi, Bluetooth und Mobilfunksendern. Die IDs werden an Google (Apple) übermittelt und Google antwortet mit der (aus den bekannten Positionen der Sender errechneten) Position.

    Das erste Verfahren ist datenschutzmäßig unproblematisch, das zweite ist problematisch.

    GrapheneOS hat auf seinen Servern einen Cache dieser Sender-Positionen. Damit kann die Position statt über Google (Apple) Server über Graphene-eigene Server ermittelt werden.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 8:58 AM

    @Life_is @CoMaps @GrapheneOS
    If they are talking about cell towers, fine, but if that includes other peoples wifi and bluetooth devices, that's still a privacy problem.

    Collecting random strangers' wifi ids was called "war-driving" before Apple and Google started doing it.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 1:53 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Wi-Fi APs are mapped in many databases as static landmarks. They're publicly broadcasting radio stations. Having a map of those doesn't harm privacy in the general case. There's a special case where it can be a privacy issue when someone moves their Wi-Fi AP from one location to another such as when moving to a new home. Apple, Google, Qualcomm and others such as wigle.net/ have services using this data. Apple's data is easy to scrape from their service.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:06 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    I subscribe to neither the "look what she was wearing", nor the "everyone else is doing it too" excuses for why something isn't harmful.

    I guess I'll have to strike GrapheneOS off my list of privacy respecting Android versions.

    And just to be clear, GrapheneOS (and Apple and Google) does not have my consent to store or process any wireless id (including but not limited to ssid, mac, ip) belonging to me. See the GDPR for further information on what that means.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:42 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps

    > I subscribe to neither the "look what she was wearing", nor the "everyone else is doing it too" excuses for why something isn't harmful.

    We didn't say either of those things. We gave examples of the available services. We provide opt-in to using Apple's service.

    > I guess I'll have to strike GrapheneOS off my list of privacy respecting Android versions.

    Network-based location is a standard feature implemented across operating systems including desktop OSes.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:44 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps macOS, Windows, GNOME, KDE, etc. use network-based location too. It's not something specific to Android and iOS. It's an industry standard feature provided by open source mobile and desktop OSes too. GrapheneOS recently added it as an opt-in feature for feature parity with other operating systems. However, our approach is a lot different from most of them other than iOS due to local position estimation and we plan to take it further than iOS with full offline support.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:06 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps CoMaps, Organic Maps, OsmAnd and most other mapping apps for Android have explicit support for using Google's network location services and in some cases alternatives to it. Apps can specifically use GNSS-based location but most have network location support.

    We aren't currently running a network location service and don't have support for collecting data for any network location service either. What we have is opt-in support for consuming data from Apple's service.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:07 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Prior to us adding opt-in support for using Apple's service, users already had the option to use Google's service via sandboxed Google Play. Multiple steps are required to enable that on GrapheneOS but it does work.

    Support for using Apple's service was added as a more private option than using sandboxed Google Play for this. The unique thing we want to provide in the near future is fully offline support instead of needing to fetch data from a service for this.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:18 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    That's not opt in from the people whose PII data you are using.

    Your argument is like Google claiming to have opt in from the advertisers to track people.

    At least Google was honest enough to strike out "don't" in "don't be evil".

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:32 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Only the subset of Wi-Fi APs publicly broadcasting their SSID are used. Running a Wi-Fi AP with public broadcasting of the SSID enabled is the opt-in choice to others being aware of it and being able to map it. It would be possible to use APs without a publicly broadcast SSID when they're active but that's explicitly not done.

    The _nomap convention is a way to publicly broadcast the SSID while opting out but Google came up with that and it's not everyone respects it.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:05 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    That's the "you consent" argument that every website used when the EU cookie law was introduced, until people started getting fined for it.

    You just keep digging yourself in further.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:15 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps The EU is participating in doing this themselves including funding projects doing it, using it in their apps and it has been discussed officially. It's regarded as legal under the GDPR by domain experts including lawyers. It's not a case of Apple and Google flaunting the law and simply being willing to accept future fines about it. Many organizations have consulted lawyers about it. The context of how the SSID is being used matters and in this context it's allowed.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 9:47 PM

    @leeloo @reflex @Life_is @CoMaps Using network location is completely opt-in on GrapheneOS and we do not have our own network location service. We have no collection of Wi-Fi AP data.

    Wi-Fi APs being included in the Apple and Google network location services is based on whether the SSID is publicly broadcasted or not. If it's publicly broadcasted, then it's included unless the name contains a _nomap suffix. If it's not publicly broadcasted then it's not included regardless of the name.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 10:35 PM

    @leeloo @reflex @Life_is @CoMaps The opt-in is publicly broadcasting an SSID from a Wi-Fi AP. Modern Wi-Fi APs explicitly support aiding positioning. It's part of why they exist now and they provide it as a public service for everyone to use. Wi-Fi RTT is not limited to authenticated clients but rather Wi-Fi APs help any client with positioning. By running a Wi-Fi AP publicly broadcasting an SSID, you're participating in a decentralized system for non-satellite-based positioning.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:49 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps We don't have any system for collecting Wi-Fi AP data ourselves but rather are using Apple's service. We plan to host our own service based on Apple's data in the near future rather than solely having a proxy.

    Google defined a convention for opting out networks from mapping by adding _nomap as a suffix for the AP. Apple started following it in early 2024. Our implementation ignores APs with _nomap suffixes and there's no data available for those from Apple regardless.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:09 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    The GDPR is quite clear that only opt in is legal. Your repeated "everyone else is doing it" doesn't hold.

    Everyone else is doing it because they can afford to laugh at a 2 billion EUR fine, just to show that they are evil.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:51 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps

    > The GDPR is quite clear that only opt in is legal.

    Network-based location using Wi-Fi APs publicly broadcasting their SSID is legal in the EU under GDPR.

    > Your repeated "everyone else is doing it" doesn't hold.

    That's not the argument for it being legal and ethical. We're pointing out it's strange to focus on us implementing a standard feature most people expect to have. It's used by other alternative Android-based operating systems and also the non-Android ones.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:54 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps

    > Everyone else is doing it because they can afford to laugh at a 2 billion EUR fine, just to show that they are evil.

    It's not something specific to large companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft. The implementation used by desktop Linux distributions with GNOME or KDE is GeoClue:

    gitlab.freedesktop.org/geoclue

    Mozilla used to run their own many of the operating systems without huge usage share were using for this feature:

    wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 3:58 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Most operating systems, browsers, mapping/navigation apps, etc. using it is not the reason why it's legal. It's the reason why focusing on us having support for it is strange. You said this in relation to us supporting a feature other open source mobile and desktop OSes support too:

    > I guess I'll have to strike GrapheneOS off my list of privacy respecting Android versions.

    You don't have to publicly broadcast your Wi-Fi SSID but not doing it isn't really more private.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:21 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Regardless of what you think about Mozilla,
    Mozilla's network-based location service was used as the default in GeoClue including for GNOME, KDE and Pantheon (elementary OS) among others. It was also the main location service used in microG by non-GrapheneOS AOSP-based operating systems. We never used it for multiple reasons and decided to work towards building our own implementation with better privacy/usability matching iOS to start with and then full offline support.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:13 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    SSIDs of private access points are personally identifiable information, much more so than IP adressed (which in most cases would require a warrant to find out who used at a specific time).

    Can you point to anything (law, legal verdicts,...) that say that using personally identifiable information without consent or valid cause is legal under the GDPR?

    Why would it be strange to focus on the one who was supposedly on the good side of the privacy question arguing for the bad side, rather than those who admit to being evil,

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:22 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps No, they're not regarded as personally identifiable information in this context. It's a publicly broadcasting radio station acting as a static landmark. Your opinion on it doesn't match the laws or what's enforced.

    Broadcasting an SSID from a Wi-Fi AP is a choice. The _nomap system didn't need to exist and Apple wasn't breaking any laws by not respecting it. It's just something Google came up with for their own service and others aren't obligated to respect it.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:29 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    They ARE personally identifiable, way more so than other examples that people do get fined for, even if the lawyers prosecuting these cases haven't caught on.

    Point to an exception in the actual text of the GDPR, or be forever regarded like the lawyers who used to pretend that you could just write "you consent".

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  • EndlessMasonEndlessMason@hachyderm.io
    Aug 1, 2025, 5:00 PM

    @leeloo @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps

    gdpr.eu/article-4-definitions/
    > ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier

    So the question is, can you tell it's me just because I'm the only one who has ever connected to the "E Masons iphone" access point, or the "Masonland" SSID at my home?

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 5:03 PM

    @EndlessMason @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps It's only the SSID, MAC and position estimate which are used as part of mapping APs with publicly broadcast SSIDs. Clients and APs without a public SSID are not included in the data. It's not only not considered PII by the EU but the EU has a mandatory standard incorporating Wi-Fi based positioning:

    etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/10360

    Every smartphone sold in the EU is required to implement this standard for emergency call locations which includes Wi-Fi positioning.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 5:05 PM

    @EndlessMason @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Claiming that it's illegal to build a Wi-Fi positioning database in the EU is claiming that Wi-Fi positioning is illegal in the EU. That's quite an extraordinarily claim when the EU is expecting every smartphone to provide location data explicitly based on Wi-Fi positioning data when making emergency calls. The intention is that when making an emergency call, GNSS, Wi-Fi based positioning, etc. are used even if they were off prior to the emergency call.

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  • EndlessMasonEndlessMason@hachyderm.io
    Aug 1, 2025, 5:23 PM

    @GrapheneOS I dunno, emergency services using that data to tell them exactly where my phone is located ... kinda sounds personally identifiable

    It also feels like mashing 112 while bleeding is a pretty clear and explicit consent to the processing of that data

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 6:21 PM

    @EndlessMason @Life_is @CoMaps The consent @leeloo has been talking about is from Wi-Fi AP owners, not the user with the device. Emergency calls don't change this at all.

    Network location is very explicitly opt-in on GrapheneOS. It's partially opt-in even on Google Mobile Services Android devices through it being disabled by default with a toggle that's enabled by default during the initial setup wizard. It's opt-out for iOS where it also didn't have a toggle until relatively recently.

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  • C.Suthorn :prn:Life_is@no-pony.farm
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:26 PM
    @leeloo@chaosfem.tw @GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social @CoMaps@floss.social

    SSID of APs are not PII in the same way as car license plates are not PII. The owner of an AP decides the SSID. It can be "Donald Trump" or "Mouse on the Moon", or anything. And the owner of the AP can change the SSID every minute.

    (But then, if you use your phone in the train and try to connect to the train public AP, your phone will first show you SSIDs like "Friedrich Merz offizielles iPhone", "CEO of SAP on Android", "Marias Samsung Galaxy S4", "Do not enter".)

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:42 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps SSID and MAC of a publicly broadcasting Wi-Fi AP are not considered PII on their own and making a database is legal. The EU is literally funding building open source projects related to this. You're treating what open source operating systems and the EU government themselves are doing as illegal without justifying it. It's clear you don't like it and think it shouldn't be legal, but that doesn't mean it's illegal under the GDPR. This is even part of the Wi-Fi standards.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:45 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Modern Wi-Fi routers assist with mapping and location detection via Wi-Fi RTT and other features. It's part of the service they're intended to provide. By running a Wi-Fi AP with a publicly broadcasting AP, you're offering a publicly available location detection service.

    The main addition in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802 was Wi-Fi positioning support. This is part of IEEE 802.11ax also known as Wi-Fi 6 so it's a standard feature on modern Wi-Fi routers. It's not unintended.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:54 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps The EU has a ETSI TS 103 625 standard for emergency calls which is mandatory for ALL smartphones sold in the EU. It standardizes using Wi-Fi based positioning as part of location detection for emergency calls. See here:

    etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/10360

    It's not only legal to do this in the EU but it's expected to be done. It's literally a core part of a standard that's mandatory to implement in the EU. It would be a broken system if it was illegal to make the database it needs.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 9:45 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps They aren't being inconsistent about this. It's permitted to map Wi-Fi APs. It's expected and pretty close to required as part of compliance with the regulations for emergency calls too.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 6:36 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    My justification is that it is just as much PII as a my address, the only difference is that it was collected wirelessly, which makes your argument boil down to "the GDPR does not apply to data collected wirelessly".

    But the real problem is that even if the GDPR did not exist, you should not be arguing for collecting personally identifiable data without consent. That's in the realm of big tech companies with "be evil" ss their motto.

    Please don't be like them.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 9:44 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Your address is publicly mapped. The location of your address is easy to look up in a database. Having a map/database of addresses mapped to locations is not a privacy issue. The same thing applies to a statically located Wi-Fi AP which is not being moved around as long as you're not putting anything sensitive in the SSID name. It's only a privacy issue when an AP is moved while having the same SSID or MAC. It's a privacy issue regardless of what we do with this.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 1:48 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Our opt-in network location service provides support for location detection without satellite reception, similarly to the Apple and Google services. Our implementation is currently based on Apple's service with the choice of using it directly or the recommended option of using it through our proxy. Similarly to Apple's approach, we do local position estimation rather than on a server like Google's implementation. It works semi-offline and will have full offline support.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 1:49 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps It provides the same OS API as the Google implementation does on a Google Mobile Services OS. Apps using the OS APIs for network or fused location will use our network location service when the user has opted into enabling it. Apps using the Google Play services fused location API directly rather than via the OS get redirected to the OS API by our sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer. However, that's not present when sandboxed Google Play isn't present.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 1:50 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps It's best if apps add a version check for Android 15 and use the Fused location provider from the OS for Android 15 and above where it should always be present and properly functioning. This way, they avoid an unnecessary dependency on Play services for fused location with Android 15 or above. It's possible to implement this for older Android versions reliably by adding an equivalent to fused location within the app querying for the GNSS and network providers.

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  • Leelooleeloo@chaosfem.tw
    Aug 1, 2025, 1:58 PM

    @GrapheneOS @Life_is @CoMaps
    That's confusing. I have an Android 14 phone with CoMaps installed from F-droid, and no "Google service" anti-feature, so if I understood correctly, neither method should work. Yet I can enable the feature without any errors.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:00 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps Fused location has been an OS API on Android for years. All we were saying is that for Android 15 and later it should always be available and reliable. There were issues with fused location availability in the past along with both OEM forks of Android on non-Pixel devices and aftermarket operating systems causing issues for it due to introducing bugs. It's entirely possible for apps to use the OS APIs for network location and fused location including before Android 15.

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  • GrapheneOSGrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:02 PM

    @leeloo @Life_is @CoMaps All we were saying is they should phase out using Google's Play services fused location API for Android 15 and later. There's only a reason to use it on older devices for compatibility. There's no reason to keep using it.

    In their non-Google variant of the app, the relevant option may simply be a no-op if it hasn't been removed as a toggle. You'll need to check the code or ask them about it. We were explaining how the OS APIs and Play service API work, not their app.

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