When you let a company like Google keep tabs on your every move, you let the company construct a repository of personal information that can be mined by your adversaries. Via Boing Boing:
Scott Budnick (producer of the “Hangover” movies) is embroiled in a complicated feud with an LA homicide cop named Sgt. Richard Biddle; Biddle has pursued his investigation against Budnick by securing an incredibly broad search-warrant to seize his Google data.
The warrant seeks:
1. All of Budnick’s account data (email addresses, connected applications and sites, etc)
2. Android info (phone make/model and IMEI, IMSI and phone number)
3. All stored “accounts, email accounts, passwords, PIN codes, account names, user names, screen names, remote data storage accounts, credit card/payment data, contact lists, calendar entries, text messages, voice mail messages, pictures, videos, telephone numbers, mobile devices, physical addresses, historical GPS locations, two-step verification information”
4. All calendars, including shared calendars (and whom they are shared with)
5. All stored contacts
6. “All user documents stored by Google”
7. Any records of securities, funds, etc
8. All Gmail messages, including metadata like read/unread
9. All Google Photo images
10. All stored location data
11. All Play Store purchases and downloads
12. All search history
13. All call records, voicemail messages, SMSes
14. All Google Wallet/Checkout data
It is a spectacularly broad warrant — and also a chilling reminder of how much data Google holds on us.
You can reduce the amount of data Google holds on you by deleting your location history, switching email providers, migrating to iOS, and so on.