Apps doing year wrapped gives you a hint on how are you being tracked. There is probably a legal issue there somewhere like data retention.

[email protected]

Spotify wrapped started this trend seems other apps are doing this now also. Seeing a summary of things you did with there app. Kind of gives you a hint how much other things are being tracked. Good chance there is data retention legal issues in there also.

Electric

Isn't that just basic data they already kept track of?

Otter

It's also a fun way to see how good their data is

For a few of the apps, the data was very limited and/or very wrong. That made me happy

[email protected]

data retention

It's the opposite - most regulatory frameworks require that you only retain data if you have a "legitimate purpose" for holding on to it; providing app features absolutely is a legitimate purpose, so by having a "wrapped" you can justify holding on to everything a user does - after all, you need it to provide features.

[email protected]

A boring dystopia

[email protected]

That's interesting never thought of that.

[email protected]

Not really sure what you mean basic but if tracking someone's clicks on certain button, or features and can be traced back to you. It's actually kind off putting so much for making your information anonymise which most companies claim. Or why even track those in the first place.

[email protected]

The only app I have that does such a thing does it because it's deliberately gamified for your benefit and tracking/summarizing your achievements for that year. IMO any other kind of app doing that is a gigantic red flag and you ought to delete it and find a replacement in the F-Droid repository (which consists entirely of Free Software that is much less likely to contain those sorts of dark patterns and other antifeatures) instead.

[email protected]

But for Spotify they are tracking how many times you played different songs. Not trying to defend them, but for a music service I’m pretty sure they need to track that kind of information regardless. Might as well tally it up and show your own data to you

Rikudou_Sage

Nope. Especially under GDPR. To use an example of Spotify - having a "wrapped" is not part of the core offering and is not necessary for the service to work. Meaning they need your permission to store that data (or other legal framework).

Rikudou_Sage

They only need aggregate data for that, they don't need them to be assigned to a specific user account.

Norah (pup/it/she)

Music players have been keeping play counts since before the invention of the iPod. It's a datapoint that users have come to expect. I actually wish services like Spotify or Apple Music did a better job of displaying this data throughout the year rather than just in end of year infographics.

Like I dunno, Google is literally collating your location data, I hardly think music plays is top secret info.

Norah (pup/it/she)

I use the journalling app Daylio, which has a wrapped feature. It's all done locally, on device. Not every implementation of this feature is spying on you.

[email protected]

I love hearing about how protective the GDPR is and wish it was a worldwide initiative with the teeth to truly protect humanity from themselves.

haui

If it just uses data that is on your device right now, that is okay. But if it keeps track on things, even on your device, it can lead to security vulnerabilities, depending how it is stored how long it is kept.

And most importantly, enshittification and automatic updates could easily change that policy to retroactively hoover up all that precious data. This stuff is insanely valuable too.

Not saying daylio is doing it or going to. Just that keeping data comes with a risk. ideally, there should be clear documentation what is being kept, where and for how long.

Norah (pup/it/she)

You're right, I should just refuse to trust any developers and go back to the paper journal I never used.

haui

Yes to part one. You should not trust devs that do opt out data collection of any kind. If you‘re interested in a funny way to learn about this stuff, check out „security nightmares“ from the recent 38c3 congress.

I suggest you keep track of your thoughts and moods with open source apps.

Norah (pup/it/she)

Daylio does not do "opt-out data collection". IT doesn't even have "opt-in".

Yes, and while that's a fine ideal, it does not always produce well-made or polished applications. For myself, Daylio is a medical/mental health app that assisted with my diagnosis of Bipolar disorder. Unfortunately FOSS apps related to medical stuff are not the greatest or most widely developed.

[email protected]

This app is pretty cool. Just saying this because it let me export my data when I wanted to stop using it. Which is not a common feature in proprietary software so hats off to the devs.

[email protected]

not a common feature in proprietary software

Just so you know, the GDPR mandates that you can at any time get a full export of all your personal data from anyone who's processing it in a common, machine readable format. It is laudable though to have that integrated as a feature in the software, rather than jumping through hoops contacting support etc.