Per one tech forum this week: “Google has quietly installed an app on all Android devices called ‘Android System SafetyCore’. It claims to be a ‘security’ application, but whilst running in the background, it collects call logs, contacts, location, your microphone, and much more making this application ‘spyware’ and a HUGE privacy concern. It is strongly advised to uninstall this program if you can. To do this, navigate to 'Settings’ > 'Apps’, then delete the application.”
Thnx for this, just uninstalled it, google are arseholes
Great, it’ll have to plow through ~30GB of 1080p recordings of darkness and my upstairs neighbors living it up in the AMs. And nothing else.
Per one tech forum this week
Stop spreading misinformation.
graphene folks have a real love for the word misinformation. That’s not you under there👻, Daniel, is it?
To quote the most salient post
The app doesn’t provide client-side scanning used to report things to Google or anyone else. It provides on-device machine learning models usable by applications to classify content as being spam, scams, malware, etc. This allows apps to check content locally without sharing it with a service and mark it with warnings for users.
Which is a sorely needed feature to tackle problems like SMS scams
if the cellular carriers were forced to verify that caller-ID (or SMS equivalent) was accurate SMS scams would disappear (or at least be weaker). Google shouldn’t have to do the job of the carriers, and if they wanted to implement this anyway they should let the user choose what service they want to perform the task similar to how they let the user choose which “Android system WebView” should be used.
If the app did what op is claiming then the EU would have a field day fining google.
So is this really just a local AI model? Or is it something bigger? My S25 Ultra has the app but it hasn’t used any battery or data.
I mean the grapheneos devs say it is. Are they going to lie.
And what exactly does that have to do with GrapheneOS?
Please, read the links. They are the security and privacy experts when it comes to Android. That’s their explanation of what this Android System SafetyCore actually is.
laughs in GrapheneOS
The countdown to Android’s slow and painful death is already ticking for a while.
It has become over-engineered and no longer appealing from a developer’s viewpoint.
I still write code for Android because my customers need it - will be needing for a while - but I’ve stopped writng code for Apple’s i-things and I research alternatives for Android. Rolling my own environment with FOSS components on top of Raspbian looks feasible already. On robots and automation, I already use it.
More information: It’s been rolling out to Android 9+ users since November 2024 as a high priority update. Some users are reporting it installs when on battery and off wifi, unlike most apps.
App description on Play store: SafetyCore is a Google system service for Android 9+ devices. It provides the underlying technology for features like the upcoming Sensitive Content Warnings feature in Google Messages that helps users protect themselves when receiving potentially unwanted content. While SafetyCore started rolling out last year, the Sensitive Content Warnings feature in Google Messages is a separate, optional feature and will begin its gradual rollout in 2025. The processing for the Sensitive Content Warnings feature is done on-device and all of the images or specific results and warnings are private to the user.
Description by google Sensitive Content Warnings is an optional feature that blurs images that may contain nudity before viewing, and then prompts with a “speed bump” that contains help-finding resources and options, including to view the content. When the feature is enabled, and an image that may contain nudity is about to be sent or forwarded, it also provides a speed bump to remind users of the risks of sending nude imagery and preventing accidental shares. - https://9to5google.com/android-safetycore-app-what-is-it/
So looks like something that sends pictures from your messages (at least initially) to Google for an AI to check whether they’re “sensitive”. The app is 44mb, so too small to contain a useful ai and I don’t think this could happen on-phone, so it must require sending your on-phone data to Google?
Thanks. Just uninstalled. What a cunts
Do we have any proof of it doing anything bad?
Taking Google’s description of what it is it seems like a good thing. Of course we should absolutely assume Google is lying and it actually does something nefarious, but we should get some proof before picking up the pitchforks.
Google is always 100% lying.
There are too many instances to list and I’m not spending 5 hours collecting examples for you.
They removed don’t be evil long time agoThey removed don’t be evil long time ago
See, this is why I like proof. If you go to Google’s Code of Conduct today, or any other archived version, you can see yourself that it was never removed. Yet everyone believed the clickbait articles claiming so. What happened is they moved it from the header to the footer, clickbait media reported that as “removed” and everyone ran with it, even though anyone can easily see it’s not true, and it takes 30 seconds to verify, not even 5 hours.
Years later you are still repeating something that was made up just because you heard it a lot.
Of course Google is absolutely evil and the phrase was always meaningless whether it’s there or not, but we can’t just make up facts just because it fits our world view. And we have to be aware of confirmation bias. Yeah Google removing “don’t be evil” sounds about right for them, right? It makes perfect sense. But it just plain didn’t happen.
Why check any sources first when you can just blindly rage and assume the worst?
I uninstalled it, and a couple of days later, it reappeared on my phone.
I didn’t have it in my app drawer but once I went to this link, it showed as installed. I un-installed it ASAP.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.safetycore&hl=en-US
I also reported it as hostile and inappropriate. I am sure Google will do fuck all with that report but I enjoy being petty sometimes
thank you for posting this. it’s not yet installed on my phone for some reason, but i will be checking this page every couple days to make sure it stays that way.
People don’t seem to understand the risks presented by normalizing client-side scanning on closed source devices. Think about how image recognition works. It scans image content locally and matches to keywords or tags, describing the person, objects, emotions, and other characteristics. Even the rudimentary open-source model on an immich deployment on a Raspberry Pi can process thousands of images and make all the contents searchable with alarming speed and accuracy.
So once similar image analysis is done on a phone locally, and pre-encryption, it is trivial for Apple or Google to use that for whatever purposes their use terms allow. Forget the iCloud encryption backdoor. The big tech players can already scan content on your device pre-encryption.
And just because someone does a traffic analysis of the process itself (safety core or mediaanalysisd or whatever) and shows it doesn’t directly phone home, doesn’t mean it is safe. The entire OS is closed source, and it needs only to backchannel small amounts of data in order to fuck you over.
Remember the original justification for clientside scanning from Apple was “detecting CSAM”. Well they backed away from that line of thinking but they kept all the client side scanning in iOS and Mac OS. It would be trivial for them to flag many other types of content and furnish that data to governments or third parties.
Fuck these cunt
Hope they like all my dick pics
Don’t worry they won’t!
/Burn
Thanks for bringing this up, first I’ve heard of it. Not present on my GrapheneOS pixel, present on stock.
I suppose I should encourage pixel owners to switch from stock to graphene, I know which decide I rather spend time using. GrapheneOS one of course.
I’m traumatized by trying to use banking apps on lineage… don’t think I’ll risk it until I get a backup phone
I’ve looked into it.l briefly. Did you have any issues switching? I’m concerned about how some apps I need would function.
I switched from a Samsung to a Pixel a couple years ago. I instantly installed GrapheneOS and have loved it ever since. It generally works perfectly normally with the huge background benefit of security and privacy. The only issues I have had is one of my banking apps doesn’t work (but the others work fine) and lack of RCS (but I’m sure it’s coming). In short, highly highly recommend. I will be sticking with GOS for the long term!
I did a fair amount of research before the switch to find alternatives to Google services, some I’ve replaced, others I felt were too much of a hassle for my phone usage.
I’ve kept my original pixel stock, the hardest part about switching this one over was plugging it in and following the instructions.
I’m hoping to get rid of my stock OS pixel soon, it would appear my bank hasn’t blocked it’s app on Graphene, unlike Uber.
For the rest I’ll either buy a cheap af shitbox to use purely for banking and Uber (if it comes to that).
If you’ve any other questions I’m happy to help find then answers with you, feel free to DM me.
Uber works on GrapheneOS
I’ve got a Pixel 8 Pro and I’m currently using the stock OS. Anything in particular that you miss with Graphene OS?
I switched from a Samsung to a Pixel a couple years ago. I instantly installed GrapheneOS and have loved it ever since. It generally works perfectly normally with the huge background benefit of security and privacy. The only issues I have had is one of my banking apps doesn’t work (but the others work fine) and lack of RCS (but I’m sure it’s coming). In short, highly highly recommend. I will be sticking with GOS for the long term!
Well then I hope they like seeing my butthole.
My older brother swipes through your phone’s photos without asking, so I put some colonoscopy pictures in there. He hasn’t tried to look at photos on my phone since.
Oh Google what have you done to yourself.
I just un-installed it
Anyone know what Android System Intelligence does? Should that be un-installed as well?
You can safely uninstall System Intelligence if you don’t need it. My phone has worked fine without it in the past year.
Jesus Christ they’re like bed bugs
Is it too much to ask that my phone only contain the shit that makes it work, and not anything else?
Its a classic example of using “BUT THE CHILDREN” to be invasive dickheads.
And it immediately reminds me of the story of the guy whose kid had a rash in the diaper area during covid, and the pediatrician requested pictures to remotely diagnose and treat, which google flagged as child pornography and called the cops on him, and banned/locked him out of everything (phone number, emails, pictures, etc etc) because he had everything on google.
and no amount of the police, or even doctor, insisting the pictures were medical necessity and not child pornography would convince google to restore his acount or even let him recover his number/email/pictures/etc.
The fact that Google refused to restore his account even after the police that they called said there was no child porn pisses me off to no end. They are officially allowed to close your account for no reason other than they don’t like you.
First result of DDG search, explains it quite well: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-system-intelligence-3325187/
I’m not seeing it on my S22, but I am seeing system intelligence. What is it?
I switched over to GrapheneOS a couple months ago and couldn’t be happier. If you have a Pixel the switch is really easy. The biggest obstacle was exporting my contacts from my google account.
GrapheneOS — an Android security developer — provides some comfort, that SafetyCore “doesn’t provide client-side scanning used to report things to Google or anyone else. It provides on-device machine learning models usable by applications to classify content as being spam, scams, malware, etc. This allows apps to check content locally without sharing it with a service and mark it with warnings for users.”
Contacts are overrated.
New os, who dis?
Niko, it’s your cousin, Roman. LETS GO BOWLING!
LineageOS is amazing as well. Especially since it covers many devices
