BIG BROTHER/1984: Did You Know That Google Is Tracking Your Movement?

BIG BROTHER/1984: Did You Know That Google Is Tracking Your Movement? 

INCLUDES: Smart Devices are Listening to (and Saving) Everything You Say, Here’s How to Stop It

It has emerged that Google has been tracking Smartphone users everywhere they go, indicating it with a red dot on a map to mark and make their location much clearer for identification.
If you do not believe this, you remember what appeared in the scene of the Minority Report, where Tom Cruise is on the run from the law, but is unable to avoid detection because everywhere he goes, there are constant retina scans feeding his location back to a central database? That is exactly what we are talking about here.


You can even track yourself to see whether what we are talking about is true or not. Just log in with the same account you use on your Smartphone. You will be able to see records of everywhere you have been from day one of that month. Just follow this link https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

It is an established fact that no matter what privacy settings you may try to implement, your information is still being collected and stored somewhere by our governments.
But somehow, you can minimize your tracking by adhering to the following procedure below.
Just follow the following steps carefully and share this information with your friends, families and anybody you know.
How To Disable Tracking & Erase Your Past History
To check whether location history is enabled on your account, go to the Google Maps Location history page and click the gear-icon button to access History settings.
You can disable or enable the service there. Disabling location history however, does not remove your past history.
If you would like to erase the locations Google Maps has stored for the past 30 days, go back to the Location history page. The default time period shows location history for the current day, so you may not see any plots on the map. Use the pull-down menu below the calendar on the left to show your history, up to 30 days.
If you choose a time period in which Google Maps has tracked your location, you will see the points where you have been on the map. Below the calendar, you will see options to delete your history from the time period you have chosen or to delete all history.

Smart Devices are Listening to (and Saving) Everything You Say, Here’s How to Stop It

The idea that the smart devices in your home and on your phone are listening to you—and recording what you are saying—is nothing new, and many Americans have become complacent with the breach of their privacy because of the convenience provided by the technology. However, it is still possible to maintain some crucial privacy with some of the most popular apps. Here are a few steps you can take:

Facebook

No matter what crazy updates or changes the app undergoes, the fact is that Facebook is a monster and whether they criticize it or not, more than 1 billion people have Facebook accounts.
One of the many problems with Facebook is that one of its updates has included giving the app access your microphone when you use Facebook Messenger. While the excuse Facebook gave was that it needed access to the microphone, in order to shoot live video within the app, the idea that Facebook has access to your smart phone’s microphone at all times is unsettling, to say the least.
iPhone Users: Go to Settings, click on Privacy, click on Microphone, and then slide the switch to the left on Messenger, turning it from green to white to turn it off. 
Android Users: Go to Settings, click on Applications, then click on Application Manager, go to Facebook, click on Permissions, and then click on Turn off the mic. 

Siri

iPhone users are all too familiar with the virtual friend living inside their smartphone, and while users often ask Siri a range of random questions, she is always listening—and even if the device is locked, saying “Hey Siri,” records your request and uploads the audio file to Apple’s servers for processing.
For iPhones using iOS 8 and later, Apple has made it so that even when the device is locked, the command of “Hey Siri” will activate the feature and give access to the phone. However, if you have experienced this new feature, you may have found that there are times when Siri is activated, even though you did not intentionally give the command.
How to turn it off: Click on Settings, go to Siri, and then toggle off Allow “Hey Siri.” For more security, also toggle off Access When Locked.

Google

While iPhone users have “Hey Siri,” Android users have “OK Google,” which also applies to Google Home speakers.  With this feature, when a user says “OK Google” the device automatically begins recording and the audio it obtains is saved to your Google account.
How to turn it off on Android devices: Go to Settings, click on Google, then click on Voice and turn off “OK Google” detection.

Cortana 

For Microsoft users, there is an equivalent to the voice-activated assistants “Hey Siri” and “OK Google,” called “Hey Cortana,” which has similar features.
The same privacy concerns have been raised by users who are worried about the amount of data Microsoft devices are storing as soon as the command “Hey Cortana” is allegedly heard.
How to turn it off: On your Windows computer, go to Cortana, select the Notebook icon in the right column, click on Settings and then toggle off “Hey Cortana.”

Amazon Echo

Amazon presents a new challenge, based on the fact that the assistant on its Echo device is not just activated by a phrase such as “Hey Alexa.” Instead, it is activated by a number of wake words, including, “Alexa,” “Amazon,” “Computer” and “Echo.”
While it is possible to turn off the microphone by clicking a button on top of the Echo device, that microphone is required to use the device in the first place. However, users do have the ability to track what Alex has recorded and to delete it.
To track and delete recordings: Open the Alex app, click on Settings, then click on History. You can then select and delete each entry.
“No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society, that we know of to this point, that has not been abused.” — Edward Snowden


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