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GCM gets more obnoxious with each release

Former Member over 6 years ago

My phone updated GCM to 4.15 this morning, and 4.15 won't allow Livetrack unless you also allow Garmin to suck your contact list down to their servers. With 4.15, if I start GCM, tap on the three bar menu, and tap on Livetrack, I get a screen asking for permission to store the contact list on their servers, and if you tap "Don't Allow", Livetrack can't be used.

I can't see any valid reason why this should be necessary, and plenty of reasons why it's a bad idea and invasion of privacy.

0 alexeames over 6 years ago

I'm not sure it sucks in all your phone contacts. I accepted it (BOHICA) and it then showed a list of contacts (just two) that I use with LiveTrack.
What's more interesting to me is whether or not LiveTrack is now fixed.

0 asteele4 over 6 years ago

I also want to register my objection to GCM now needing to suck all my contacts to their servers.

Whilst they say data won't be shared, that doesn't stop new owners changing policy and it doesn't stop governments forcing it.

What I'm hoping is the case is this is the result of the GDPR. As a result of the GDPR they need to inform users that (some) contacts will be sent to the servers. I suspect the message is poorly worded (and if so, should be updated). What I'm hoping it's trying to convey is that the contacts you are sending your live track info to will be stored on their servers as part of sending out the live track messages. This is more acceptable, it is not all your contacts, only those it needs to send live track message to.

Can someone at Garmin clarify? Why (all) contacts need to be stored on your servers, if that is indeed what's happening.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I'm not sure it sucks in all your phone contacts. I accepted it (BOHICA) and it then showed a list of contacts (just two) that I use with LiveTrack.
What's more interesting to me is whether or not LiveTrack is now fixed.

Yes, I realise that it's only the Livetrack contacts. But Livetrack has, at some points in the past, worked fine without the contacts needing to be stored on Garmin's servers, so it's obviously not something that is necessary.

0 alexeames over 6 years ago

Yes, I realise that it's only the Livetrack contacts. But Livetrack has, at some points in the past, worked fine without the contacts needing to be stored on Garmin's servers, so it's obviously not something that is necessary.

Obvious to you maybe, but it's obvious to me that there's a possibility this data was already being stored on the servers and in an attempt to become a bit more GDPR compliant someone has realised they need to ask permission? Just a thought.

If you think about it, you can't send an email without the recipient's email address being stored (even for a short time while the email is being processed) on the mail server. It will also then be stored in the server mail logs for a time.

0 P_W_P over 6 years ago

It's quite possible that the sending of Live Tracking notifications has been moved from the phone to Garmin's servers in order to improve the reliability of those notifications. If that's the case then I'll happily take the tradeoff. Or perhaps, as alexeames suggested, notifications have always been from the server and you're now being informed and given a chance to opt-out for conformance with regulatory requirements. (Sorta like the seemingly-endless "this site uses cookies" notifications on websites.)

The bottom line, ultimately, is whether or not a given person trusts Garmin with their data.

-- Pete

0 alexeames over 6 years ago

This was in a thread about GCM for iOS. Thought it was also relevant here...

As for the questions regarding the contacts within the Garmin Connect App, with the announcement of the vivoactive 3 Music (Verizon) at CES 2019, we introduced Incident Detection and LiveTrack to wrist-worn devices along with a new Assistance feature. As part of our efforts to introduce this new functionality and allow the vivoactive 3 Music (Verizon) to use contact information for those features and phone-free text messaging, we re-examined how we handle contacts for all users and decided to make changes to better allow users to use contacts across features like LiveTrack and Incident Detection. Doing so also paves the way for future enhancements and functionality. The contact information is stored in Garmin Connect solely for the purpose of supporting these features and only includes those contacts you select to import from your phone or that you manually create within Garmin Connect.