[raman162]

If you really wanted to quit you could get a pixel and install lineageOS or CalyxOS. Now I agree that's jumping through a lot of hoops to get your privacy but it's all based on how much you value that.

I personally like to believe that I value my privacy but de-googling sounds like a large inconvenience. The cynic in me also partially believes that it's pointless and another company will just be(gin) churning my data.

I was thinking of switching from my pixel to an iphone but this recent misstep by apple has dissolved the belief I've had that they are a privacy centric company.

[peakaboo]

It matters very much if one company grabs all your data and combines it, vs lots of separate companies having small bits of your data.

[candiodari]

... which is exactly why 99% of privacy laws should focus on government services. Becomes government services combined have all the highly sensitive data you absolutely do NOT want anyone to have, especially not the police, your doctor or other branches of the government. From tax to criminal records, with medical records in between.

And, of course, there, we've chosen to not care. So government social workers constructing databases of homeless with the express purpose to deny them emergency medical care is done at least in Belgium and the Netherlands, maybe elsewhere. And that's just one example.

If child services is involved, we now consider a mother's medical records fair game in divorce proceedings (and how long is it really going to take to drop that requirement too?). If you manage to download your spouse's facebook chats, or outlook, or whatsapp backup, you get to use them in divorce too, by the way (yes, I know about "no fault" divorces, but if they "depend" on someone else already you technically don't owe any alimony since someone else already took that over). Tax records are used to find people for parking tickets. Medical records are monitored live, so people can get arrested instead of cared for in hospitals if they're behind on their taxes. Child services, the front side (e.g. street workers, or the ones that are kind-of sports coaches in the street and do, say, basketball), by the way, are now forced to find "kids" for the police to arrest. NOT specific kids, mind you, when there's been a protest and the police needs kids to arrest, these people have it as their JOB to find kids for that (and yes, I'm sure they do try to find a few that were in the protest first).

To make matters worse, you can look at the organisational structure, which again, no-one seems to realise. The chief of police, who asks these social workers to find kids to arrest, is appointed directly by the major. The major, of course, is an elected official, who is absolutely not neutral. So it's a matter of time until a "Vlaams-Belang" major gets caught making sure it's "brown" kids that get arrested for every protest by replacing the chief of police with a raging lunatic racist. Or worse.

But we're worried that Apple might pass pictures that you're essentially carrying in your pocket to the police? I don't understand people ...

These days it actually makes sense to ask your doctor NOT to keep a medical file on you, which is a right you still have in Belgium. If you do get in trouble, you're FAR better off without one. You don't get to refuse to unlock your phone anyway in Belgium, so what's the point of having the pictures on your phone behind a lockscreen?