Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Can Google read my Signal messages on stock Android? (lemy.lol)

submitted 5 days ago by flork@lemy.lol to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I recently asked the /c/Android community what information Google has access to on stock Android, assuming the user is not using any Google apps, and was told Google has full "unstoppable" access to the entire device, including Signal messages, the microphone, duckduckgo search history and anything displayed on the screen at all times.

Does this mean that encrypted messaging is essentially pointless to use on Android? I'm a newb here so go easy on me.

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[–] flork@lemy.lol 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Odd. Signal notifications absolutely include the content of the messages received.

[–] passepartout@feddit.org 18 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

In Signal, push notifications simply act as a ping that tells the app to wake up.

Google only pings your phone via FCM, the Signal App then polls the message itself.

Edit: oops, you meant the pop-up. You can disable them from showing the message.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago

Pretty sure it doesn't by default? You can definitely change it, but I thought it was just name by default.