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Google has long offered a “Find My Device” feature that lets you locate your Android phone on a map, play a sound to help you find it, or lock or erase your device to prevent your data from getting into someone else’s hands.
But so far this only works on devices that are powered on. In the future you may be able to find an Android device even when it’s turned off, or possibly even after it’s been factory reset.
There’ve been multiple reports in recent months that Google is building out a “Finder Network” meant to rival Apple’s “Find My” network. Essentially it will be able to leverage millions of Android phones to create a network that helps locate missing phones, wireless earbuds, or other accessories… possibly including Bluetooth tracker tags similar to those offered by Apple, Samsung, and Tile.
The network is expected to be opt-in, and user data will be encrypted and anonymized to protect your privacy. But unless Google makes some changes to the way Android phones work, you’d still only be able to use the Finder Network to locate an Android device that’s powered on and connected to the network.
But it looks like something is likely to change. According to reports from 91Mobiles and 9to5Google, there’s evidence that Google is working on a “Power-off Finder” feature that will allow a phone to emit a Bluetooth signal that can be received by other devices on the network even if the phone is powered off.
First spotted by Kuba Wojciechowski, there’s already some code in place for the feature in builds of the Google Play Services app. It’s unclear when the feature will be ready for release, and there’s a chance that it may be exclusive to Google Pixel devices, at least initially. But it could bring Google’s Finder Network one step closer to matching the feature set of Apple’s Find My Network.
It’s unclear at this point whether Google’s Power-off Finder will continue to work even after a phone is factory reset though. That’s something iPhones have supported for the past few years.
This is a terrible idea and not something that apple’s find my does. What feature matching are you talking about?
They introduced it as an option in iOS 15: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210400
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/add-your-iphone-iph9a847efc7/ios#:~:text=On%20a%20supported%20iPhone%2C%20turning,is%20sent%20to%20Apple%20automatically.
I don’t think it means what you suggest it does. Those 24 hours is the time frame in which the iPhone is findable when off, not that it actually updates its location.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/07/ios-15-find-my-network-can-find-your-iphone-when-it-is-powered-off/
I don’t think the average person loses a cell phone often enough for this horrendous breach of privacy to be necessary and when they do the cell phone is usually on. This has to be to ensure that no one EVER escapes the location tracking. If you can’t even turn it off when the phone is off, how can you know it’s off when you ask it to be? And “anonymized”, as if, how are they supposed to know whose phone is whose?
Oh, perhaps they mean relay phones can’t tell what what information they’re relaying. Well, of course. Google doesn’t want anyone else selling that data to advertisers and police.
I won’t be surprised to find out that after a certain point that phones sold by carriers come already opted into this, followed shortly by all phones sold anywhere, and no one noticed, and I’m the dangerous idiot for caring.
Yet another reason to move to FLOSS phones with Waydroid, f-droid and ideally HKS.
I think this is actually more intended for emergency situations. For example: missing persons and disaster rescue. If someone is out hiking and has a medical emergency that incapacitates them, then this feature would help rescuers find them even after their cell phone had died. Ditto for people stuck in collapsed buildings after earthquakes or tornados. Privacy concerns fall by the wayside during life and death emergencies. This gives people who don’t have a strong social “safety net” the ability to opt in to greater safety (albeit at the cost of privacy). In this day and age though, privacy is an illusion. And honestly, unless you’re secretly a serial killer or a celebrity of some type, you’re not that important and no one actually cares what you’re doing anyway.
If I ever had some kind of medical emergency while alone that incapacitated me to the point that I couldn’t even pull the cord on some kind of emergency beacon, or get my phone out and tell someone there’s been a problem, I’d probably be dead by the time someone with permissions to locate my phone found me whether they had the assistance of bluetooth tracking or not. Remember, relay phone’s can’t tell what they’re relaying, so it’s not like anyone’s going to get an alert that there’s a phone with a mostly depleted battery nearby unless my phone was registered among their stuff. Furthermore, bluetooth tracking doesn’t have an unlimited range. Someone has to get within shouting distance of my phone anyway in order for its location to be relayed through the network. And if there’s random people wandering by often enough, I’m probably in cell tower range. And if I’m worried enough about having a problem where there are no towers, I’ll get something or other with satellite or radio connectivity, or blinks and beeps, or bring someone else with me, which is what everyone else has had to do. I’ll get help a lot faster with these things than bluetooth tracking.
As for collapsed buildings, all that tells you is that there’s a phone in the building. Everyone in the building or that phone’s owner might have gotten out already, and it’s already routine to search collapsed buildings unless people from the building report that everyone got out. Search and rescue teams will have to consider that phones can be separated from their owners and disturbing some of the pile to get to the phone puts someone trapped nearby at risk, so the location of someone in the rubble must be confirmed through methods other than bluetooth tracking. Did people’s lives just stop mattering unless they’ve turned on bluetooth tracking?
I’ll admit, I did eventually think of one situation I can think of where this feature would actually be useful, and that’s if the phone is stolen, but that’s only worth anything if anyone is willing to apprehend the person who did it.