For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in the
system tray when I sat at this computer. All programs were closed. My
wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.

So I figured there must be a log file of these events. So I went to
privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only
option is to clear the history.

Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and
offers to sign in with a Microsoft account. WTF?

Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing your
location on your own?

On 6/22/2022 9:09 PM, sticks wrote:
> For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in the system tray when I sat at this computer.  All programs were closed.  My wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.
>
> So I figured there must be a log file of these events.  So I went to privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only option is to clear the history.
>
> Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and offers to sign in with a Microsoft account.  WTF?
>
> Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing your location on your own?

There are two classes of location.

Microsoft pretends they're a smartphone for the one part.
Each application has a little switch in the setting, to
prevent an application from getting location info.

However, the "News and Interests" includes a weather bug.
And you cannot prevent the weather bug from knowing your
location. You can turn off News and Interests, but that
does not answer the question of what location data is
exchanged with Microsoft while it is turned off.

Their idea of privacy is very selective. I don't think
they liked the level of "enrollment" in Location by the
user community, which is why an extra weather bug seemed
like a good idea.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/LXSp2gQL/settings-stuff.gif

On Windows 11, the stuff has "gone down a rabbit hole".
You have to turn Widgets on, to see the controls for the Widgets.

https://allthings.how/how-to-disable-news-in-windows-11-widgets/

Paul

Paul wrote:

> the "News and Interests" includes a weather bug.
> And you cannot prevent the weather bug from knowing your
> location.

I have that turned off, I just enabled it to check, and it displays the weather
for the city where my ISP has its HQ, so I'm not over-concerned about its
ability to track me.

On 6/23/2022 4:53 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
>> the "News and Interests" includes a weather bug.
>> And you cannot prevent the weather bug from knowing your
>> location.
>
> I have that turned off, I just enabled it to check, and it displays the weather for the city where my ISP has its HQ, so I'm not over-concerned about its ability to track me.
>

It has successfully tracked me in the past.

It's the real McCoy this time, not an "ISP head office thingy".

I know the type of response you're referring to, and that's
not it for News and Interests. That's one of the reasons
I sought to turn it off in the first place.

*******

You know that when Google pulls that schtick, it's all a fake
right ? What they print at the bottom of a Google search result
returned to you "You're in DoofusVille this morning and
DunceVille this afternoon". They actually know exactly where you are,
so they can show you pizza joints. They just don't want to
print your grid coords at the bottom of a search page
and scare away the suckers. They purposely fit up lame
locations, so you can pretend they aren't good at it.

The thing is, people type in locations, like I did this
morning.

list of power outages Lameville

They could set a cookie, indicating "most likely to be in Lameville".
Yet, the info at the bottom of the search result page will
continue to show DoofusVille. If I check the time the public library
in Lameville opens this morning, I'll still be in DoofusVille.

For an evil empire, they do a lot of snickering.

Paul

Paul wrote:

> You know that when Google pulls that schtick, it's all a fake
> right ? What they print at the bottom of a Google search result
> returned to you "You're in DoofusVille this morning and
> DunceVille this afternoon". They actually know exactly where you are,
> so they can show you pizza joints.

If I'm signed-in with the same google account that my phone is signed-in with,
they they make that pretty clear by showing my actual postcode.

Why is google in black and white today, has someone died?

On 6/23/2022 12:14 PM, Andy Burns wrote:

> If I'm signed-in with the same google account that my phone is signed-in with, they they make that pretty clear by showing my actual postcode.
>
> Why is google in black and white today, has someone died?

On mine there is a black ribbon.
Holding the mouse over the black ribbon icon shows:

"Remembering lives lost on Air India Flight 182"

Paul

On 6/22/2022 8:09 PM, sticks wrote:
> For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in the
> system tray when I sat at this computer.  All programs were closed.  My
> wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.
>
> So I figured there must be a log file of these events.  So I went to
> privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only
> option is to clear the history.
>
> Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and
> offers to sign in with a Microsoft account.  WTF?
>
> Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing your
> location on your own?

So I have the resource monitor left open. I don't use the weather and
news app. I understand they might collect info anyway. When I come
back and the system is idle, the process that shows up in Network
Activity is BackgrountTaskHandler. It then disappears as soon as I
start using the machine along with the location tracking icon.

A search says among other things, this is somehow associated with
Cortana, which I also do not use. It too appears to be an integral
program and even though you are not using it is still collecting
information.

Still haven't found any logging of location access. Microsoft thus is
kind enough to place an icon in your system tray saying someone is
tracking your location, but not kind enough to allow you to find out who.

On 6/23/2022 1:05 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 6/22/2022 8:09 PM, sticks wrote:
>> For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in the
>> system tray when I sat at this computer.  All programs were closed.
>> My wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.
>>
>> So I figured there must be a log file of these events.  So I went to
>> privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only
>> option is to clear the history.
>>
>> Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and
>> offers to sign in with a Microsoft account.  WTF?
>>
>> Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing your
>> location on your own?
>
> So I have the resource monitor left open.  I don't use the weather and
> news app.  I understand they might collect info anyway.  When I come
> back and the system is idle, the process that shows up in Network
> Activity is BackgrountTaskHandler.  It then disappears as soon as I
> start using the machine along with the location tracking icon.
>
> A search says among other things, this is somehow associated with
> Cortana, which I also do not use.  It too appears to be an integral
> program and even though you are not using it is still collecting
> information.
>
> Still haven't found any logging of location access.  Microsoft thus is
> kind enough to place an icon in your system tray saying someone is
> tracking your location, but not kind enough to allow you to find out who.

FWIW, there are two Cortana listings in resource monitor under TCP
connections. It's suddenly calling home for some reason.

sticks wrote:
> For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in the
> system tray when I sat at this computer.  All programs were closed.  My
> wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.
>
> So I figured there must be a log file of these events.  So I went to
> privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only
> option is to clear the history.
>
> Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and
> offers to sign in with a Microsoft account.  WTF?
>
> Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing your
> location on your own?

If using Windows 10(this group's focus) and not using a MSFT account to
sign-on your online location data doesn't exist(i.e while a link to
privacy dashboard is functional, it's useless since a sync for a local
account to the MSFT online Privacy web page is not possible)

Which leaves just local applications that use location tracking(which
you have the option to enable or disable) stored on the device. Most of
those are apps that function with Windows and a MSFT account.

While an option to view location data for a Windows logon isn't present,
anything stored is only temporary.
You do have the option to clear location data(minimal amount with a
local account) via Settings/Privacy/Location options.
- Same place allows one to toggle on/off Win10 inclused apps and
desktop user installed programs that integrate with Location tracking.

Your only other related option where an app supports location and
activity tracking is to clear the Activity History from your(MSFT
feature) TimeLine - the data is stored in your user profile in the
filename ActivitiesCache.db

Thus for a local account - not much is being stored unless you permit
Windows to do so.

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

On 6/23/2022 6:47 PM, ...winston wrote:
> sticks wrote:
>> For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in the
>> system tray when I sat at this computer.  All programs were closed.
>> My wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.
>>
>> So I figured there must be a log file of these events.  So I went to
>> privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only
>> option is to clear the history.
>>
>> Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and
>> offers to sign in with a Microsoft account.  WTF?
>>
>> Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing your
>> location on your own?
>
> If using Windows 10(this group's focus) and not using a MSFT account to
> sign-on your online location data doesn't exist(i.e while a link to
> privacy dashboard is functional, it's useless since a sync for a local
> account to the MSFT online Privacy web page is not possible)
>
> Which leaves just local applications that use location tracking(which
> you have the option to enable or disable) stored on the device. Most of
> those are apps that function with Windows and a MSFT account.
>
> While an option to view location data for a Windows logon isn't present,
> anything stored is only temporary.
> You do have the option to clear location data(minimal amount with a
> local account) via Settings/Privacy/Location options.
>  - Same place allows one to toggle on/off Win10 inclused apps and
> desktop user installed programs that integrate with Location tracking.
>
> Your only other related option where an app supports location and
> activity tracking is to clear the Activity History from your(MSFT
> feature) TimeLine - the data is stored in your user profile in the
> filename ActivitiesCache.db
>
> Thus for a local account - not much is being stored unless you permit
> Windows to do so.
>

All windows apps were toggled off. The only user app I allowed was
Firefox. It says it last accessed location 3 days ago, yet something
has been accessing my location ever since then. I have now completely
blocked windows and personal apps from doing so. It just aggravates me
you can't find out who is spying on you.

Thanks for your help. I'll also look into ActiviesCache.db

sticks wrote:
> On 6/23/2022 6:47 PM, ...winston wrote:
>> sticks wrote:
>>> For the first time I've seen it, the location tracking icon was in
>>> the system tray when I sat at this computer.  All programs were
>>> closed. My wife says this has been on her laptop too recently.
>>>
>>> So I figured there must be a log file of these events.  So I went to
>>> privacy/activity history, and app permissions/location and the only
>>> option is to clear the history.
>>>
>>> Clicked on the link for privacy dashboard and it goes to the web and
>>> offers to sign in with a Microsoft account.  WTF?
>>>
>>> Is there really no way to view on your computer who was accessing
>>> your location on your own?
>>
>> If using Windows 10(this group's focus) and not using a MSFT account
>> to sign-on your online location data doesn't exist(i.e while a link to
>> privacy dashboard is functional, it's useless since a sync for a local
>> account to the MSFT online Privacy web page is not possible)
>>
>> Which leaves just local applications that use location tracking(which
>> you have the option to enable or disable) stored on the device. Most
>> of those are apps that function with Windows and a MSFT account.
>>
>> While an option to view location data for a Windows logon isn't
>> present, anything stored is only temporary.
>> You do have the option to clear location data(minimal amount with a
>> local account) via Settings/Privacy/Location options.
>>   - Same place allows one to toggle on/off Win10 inclused apps and
>> desktop user installed programs that integrate with Location tracking.
>>
>> Your only other related option where an app supports location and
>> activity tracking is to clear the Activity History from your(MSFT
>> feature) TimeLine - the data is stored in your user profile in the
>> filename ActivitiesCache.db
>>
>> Thus for a local account - not much is being stored unless you permit
>> Windows to do so.
>>
>
> All windows apps were toggled off.  The only user app I allowed was
> Firefox.  It says it last accessed location 3 days ago, yet something
> has been accessing my location ever since then.  I have now completely
> blocked windows and personal apps from doing so.  It just aggravates me
> you can't find out who is spying on you.
>
> Thanks for your help.  I'll also look into ActiviesCache.db
>
>
:)
If it's on the machine and not a Windows app the likely source is 3rd
party software(i.e. those installed Desktop user installed programs that
obtain your location from use or surfing).

More info:
<https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-desktop-apps-and-privacy-8b3b13bc-d8ff-5460-8423-7d5d5c1f6665>

Fyi...Firefox with its default settings intact is installed on this W10
Pro device and it is *not* present afaics in Windows Privacy's entire
settings items. I also have Chrome and SeaMonkey installed and neither
of those browsers are present in Privacy's settings.

Before you dig into the ActivitesCache database...
=> Just open your Windows 'Timeline' - find the icon on your Taskbar
to the left of the Start button. Optionally, just press Windows key +
Tab to view your timeline - What you see, if any. is the primary content
in that database.

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ