Will Google Play Services compromise my privacy on GrapheneOS?
Will Google Play Services compromise my privacy on GrapheneOS?
Hello everyone. I have a separate profile for my proprietary apps on GOS, yet some of these apps don't work, so I'm thinking I need to enable Google Play Services.
Was wondering if this could hugely compromise my privacy, and if I could uninstall GPS later on. Thank you!
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Grapheneos.org explains how the sandboxed GPS minimizes what it can collect. The highly promiscuous standard implementation of GPS has massive access to your device with limited and uncertain abilities to restrain what it can collect. All apps in Graphene are treated as hostile with fire grained firewall abilities. The sandboxed GPS from Graphene is implemented as any other app and only needs network access to deliver notification.
I created an anonymous Google account and only give it network access until the day some of the apps I need. Google only knows that someone from an IP address is getting notifications for those apps that use it. Once these apps switch to unified push or web sockets to deliver notifications, I will remove GPS.
Note that your Google account is pseudonymous, not anonymous. It's still an account related to your person, just without your real name attached. That's a step up from a clear-name Google account but nowhere near private.
Google can mine an insane amount of data out of just when you are online and/or using their services.
If all you're only using GPS for notifications why login at all?
You can skip logon to just get notifications. Since Aurora store was rate limited, I started installing from GPS.
Great explanation!