We’ve become increasingly aware of how important it is to protect privacy and personal data in this modern digital age, and whenever there’s a risk of said information falling into the wrong hands, it’s only natural that we pay attention.
An interesting discovery has been made by Computerworld’s Michael Horowitz. Apparently, Google keeps a log of every Wi-Fi password ever entered into an Android device, and although humans do not see these passwords, the mere fact that they are there will be disconcerting to some.
The Big G’s privacy policy has been thrust into the spotlight on more than a few occasions in the past, and although this behavior of automatically logging passwords is only used to help mobile users backup their data to Google servers and not need to keep re-entering passwords, it’s fair to say that the company has a lot of Wi-Fi password information.
When you back your data up to Google servers, it keeps your phone book information and such, but few would even recognize that Wi-Fi passwords are included in the bargain. There’s no doubt that it is useful from a user experience point of view, for when you opt to restore data on a new device, you don’t need to go scratching around for those hotspot passphrases once again – cumbersome to say the least.
However, while Google is helping make Android a more seamless experience, not everybody will feel comfortable with any entity keeping this information. You can opt out of the auto-backup feature within the Settings app of any Android device, but considering no human will see your Wi-Fi password anyway, you’re perhaps better off allowing the backups to continue.
To be honest, it depends on your own personal stance, and which you find to be the lesser of two evils. Typing in passwords time after time is not particularly fun, but knowing such a large company knows so much about you is, by the same token, quite scary.
Will you be preventing your Android device’s automatic backups, or you don’t care one bit? You know where to drop your thoughts.
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