So Google is now preventing people from removing location data from photos taken with Pixel phones.
Remember when Google’s corporate motto was “don’t be evil?”
Obviously, accurate location data on photos is more useful to a data mining operation like Google.
From Google: “Important: You can only update or remove estimated locations. If the location of a photo or video was automatically added by your camera, you can’t edit or remove the location.”
It’s enshitification in action.
Source: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6153599?hl=en&sjid=8103501961576262529-AP
#technology #tech @technology #business #enshitification #Android #Google @pluralistic #infosec
@ajsadauskas @alan @technology @pluralistic You’re talking about Photos, not the camera app. You can disable location data collection in the camera app: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/9921876?hl=en#zippy=%2Cgoogle-devices
Cameras write location data to the image itself as metadata. If they’re using a content addressable storage system, they can’t update this data without changing the underlying image itself. Seems like edits in Photos are stored separate from the image itself. Editing image metadata may require architectural changes.