[privacy] Default configuration modifications

Development
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After re-reading carefully the home-assistant code of conduct https://www.home-assistant.io/code_of_conduct/ and in particular the following points :

  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism

I’ve decided to bring forward the following proposition :

Should home-assistant ship with Google Text-To-Speech and https://www.yr.no/ activated by default in the configuration ?

First technical question : if a user that just installed homeassistant doesn’t click on the speech button is google “pinged” at any point ? If not I guess that would be an argument to keep this piece of configuration

For YR, I guess it starts getting information straight away, what privacy implications does this have ?

The piece of code we are discussing is here :

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From a quick look at the source: https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/blob/master/homeassistant/components/sensor/yr.py

It would appear that your lat, lon and HA name are used and could possibly be logged by yr (I haven’t bothered reading their privacy policy as I don’t use the sensor). If it worries you, you should make the effort to read it.

For Google TTS, - I’m sure its fine, their motto is (was?) ‘don’t be evil’ :rofl:

Seriously though, it is a strange service to have enabled by default considering Google’s actual data collection practices.

2 Likes
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Thanks for taking the time to answer this. An while we’re at it, is there a point in collecting the weather conditions of lat 0 and long 0 since this is the default on a new installation https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/blob/dev/homeassistant/config.py#L55-L57 ?