Postcards From Across the Pond

I recently got a new phone. Hold your applause.

My current phone (I won’t say my old phone because, by my reckoning, I bought it about 2 years ago) started slowing down, forgetting things, and needing recharging more regularly, which is kind of how I feel some days, but that’s beside the point. I thought getting a new battery would solve the issues, but when I looked into the phone’s history, I realized it was closer to four years old than two, and that—as we all know—is about 147 in phone years.

And so, I bought a new phone. No drama, except needing to repeatedly fend off the salesboy’s attempts to get me to sign up for a bigger, better, faster, more (££) plan, despite my repeatedly assuring him that my existing plan has ten times the data I currently need.

Then he refused to help me transfer my data, telling me it was so easy even I could do it, which didn’t put my mind at ease as he really didn’t know me well enough to make that assessment.

As it turned out, it was a doddle. I followed the links, put my old (sorry, current) phone next to the usurper and they immediately became worryingly intimate, especially seeing as how they had just met, and didn’t even use a digital condom. After a few minutes of IT ecstasy, my current phone shot its data-load into the new phone and that was that.

Done and dusted, new phone in pocket, no worries. Until I received an email from Google.

The email was titled, “A new device is contributing to your location history,” which was unsettling on several levels. First, I was absolutely certain I had turned off “Location” when setting up my new phone, and, secondly, I had been pretty sure my old phone hadn’t been tracking me because I thought I had turned “Location” off on that, as well. The email—clearly something Google was forced to send me, probably due to a residual EU law that states corporations must tell you when they are stalking you (don’t worry, the Tories will put paid to that in short order)—contained a handy link to my “Timeline,” so I clicked it, and discovered that every place I have ever been, the mode of transportation I used to get there, and the route I took, has been tracked, and saved, by Google, since the 26th of September 2015.

It’s hard to describe what I felt. I wasn’t horrified, and I didn’t feel violated. Mostly, I was confused, curious, and gobsmacked. Why would they do that? How could they do that (when I travel abroad, I always leave my phone on Flight Mode to avoid accidentally racking up charges)? And what possible purpose could this serve?

And why the 26 of September 2015? It’s such an arbitrary date, and it is not a date when I got a new phone, so perhaps it’s just when they finally developed the technology to do it. So, they did.

I don’t recall being asked about it, or reminded of it during previous phone upgrades, but now that I was aware of it, I could, by God, do something about it.

I checked my settings and, sure enough, they were ticked to allow Google to do this. I’d love to say that Google switched them back on when I had turned them off but, after giving it some thought, I realized something: I had been offered the opportunity to switch it off, but I hadn’t done it. And now, looking at the timeline, I realized why: it was fascinating.

Think about it: every place I have ever been in the last seven years, every walk I have taken, every time I took the car to the service station, every time I nipped to the shops, or flew across the ocean, all saved and easily recalled. While I realize that, to many, many people, this is an unwelcome intrusion, and that there are some people who would, for good reason, want to keep their whereabouts private, and that this data could easily be harvested by criminal gangs or the government (same thing, really) for nefarious purposes, to someone who keeps a journal, it’s a gold mine.

I have always joked that if I was interrogated by the police and asked, “Where were you on the evening of the 12th of July 2016, I could—if they allowed me access to my journals—tell them. Now, I don’t even have to leave the room (provided they haven’t confiscated my phone), and I can tell them exactly where I was, how I got there and how long I stayed.

I fully admit that there were times in my life when revealing all those details might have been awkward, but the past seven years have been placid enough where I don’t have to worry about that, unless they decide to make visiting a National Trust tea shoppe a crime.

And now that I know they are doing it, I have a bit more control. I could delete it, but I prefer to have it up front, where I can see what they are seeing, because I am certain, if I turn Tracking off, they won’t stop tracking me, they’ll just stop showing my timeline.

Public Service Addendum:

If you are concerned by any of this and—like me—were unaware of it, go to your Google account, click Manage Your Google Account, and then go to Data and Privacy. You will be amazed what you find there.

Not only are they tracking your every move, they also have a list of every web page you’ve visited and every YouTube video you’ve watched, which could be embarrassing if you forget to switch to Privacy Mode when you’re watching porn.