Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police
What will be used for good needs to be used carefully, and will be used for bad. This is a short walk to the Governments tracking activists … journalists even … that they want to shut down.
Wonder what Apple would do?
@JohnPhilpin Good article. As for activists and journalists this is exactly the reason phones like the Librem 5 are being developed with "Hardware Kill Switches for camera, microphone, WiFi/Bluetooth, and baseband." Not just software switches but real physical hardware so you can be assured all tracking GPS etc. is off. Linux is the OS. They are predicting the Librem 5 will start shipping in the 3rd quarter of 2019. I've had one on preorder since 2017.
If you just want Google tracking out of the equasion there is the e.foundation which is developing 2 things: 1. a forked version of Android that has been de-Googled - purged of all Google spyware, 2. a new ecosystem of all the apps that Google uses with Android to keep you dependent on Google and therefore trackable by Google ie. replacement email, search, cloud drive, weather, app store, maps, SMS, phone, browser and more. E foundation is making good progress although I suspect a real hardware phone will come out for Europe and the rest of the world before something for America comes out. However you can install "E" on 50 or more preexisting phones if you are brave and have an extra Android phone sitting around.
Other options are UBports which has kept Ubuntu Touch alive after Canonical abandoned it. If you stay away from Google services then only your ISP can track you.