Maybe if I was 'important', I'd care about it.Įxactly, on all four counts. Uh, you agreed to their terms and conditions. If you don't want to be potentially tracked, don't use a cellular Internet communications device loaded with location-based services on a carrier that has your name, address, and SSN. My brother will probably bring this up any day now, as a reason why his Garminfone is "way better than the iPhone." People have been calling Apple "Big Brother" for years for curating their own app store, I mean things don't have to make sense for people to believe them. But really I just think it will make Android fanboys more fanboyish and nobody else will care. I use Google Maps and Bing Maps, so I imagine Google and Microsoft already know where I am, too.Ĭould this be a PR black eye for Apple? I suppose. But, like, normally? AT&T and T-Mobile already know where I am. If I was a criminal or a spy and I was doing something where I didn't want to be potentially tracked, well, that's what cheap pre-paid phones paid for in cash are for. Plus, I already assume that I'm able to be tracked, by my phone company. If I did really care, there is an easy way to jailbreak and get rid of this data, so the option is there to get rid of it. Plus, as BU pointed out, we did agree to their terms and conditions. I know it's all about "OMG! Big Brother is tracking me!" but I don't see the big deal. I'm going to be honest, I could care less if someone is tracking where my phone is. *FWIW, I got an error (This OS version not supported) running the app, but I'm only on 10.5.8. Privacy implications may peg the paranoia meter for some - Apple could at least encrypt the file -, but until the targeted advertising or stalker apps or other outcomes surface in larger form, it's tinfoil hat time at one extreme and access point bingo for the curious at the other. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services." This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. "Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. Apple declined to comment on why the file is created or whether it can be disabled.Īpple can legitimately claim that it has permission to collect the data: near the end of the 15,200-word terms and conditions for its iTunes program, used to synchronise with iPhones, iPods and iPads, is an 86-word paragraph about "location-based services". The iPhone system, by contrast, appears to record the data whether or not the user agrees. At the time MPs said that Latitude "could substantially endanger user privacy", but Google pointed out that users had to specifically choose to make their data available. MPs in 2009 criticised the search engine giant Google for its "Latitude" system, which allowed people to enable their mobile to give out details of their location to trusted contacts. Standard phones do not record location data. It doesn't record anything itself, it only displays files that are already hidden on your computer.Īlthough mobile networks already record phones' locations, it is only available to the police and other recognised organisations following a court order under the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act. This open-source application maps the information that your iPhone is recording about your movements. Pete Warden has a FAQ and Open Source App () to display/map data in this file, along with some other example visualizations. Also how they went about exploring and visualising the data once they knew it was there, and show how it could be used to track individuals movements over time. Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan talking about how they discovered the existence of the tracking database on the iPhone, and what it might mean. The 'discoverers' Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, (who've done some nifty visualizations of radiation in Japan ()) have recently blogged about it at O'reilly Radar () and talked about it for 20 minutes during the Where 2.0 conference (YouTube version ()). Surreptitiously stored on iPhone 3GS and newer devices since iOS4 is a file of location data logged by cell triangulation going back up to a year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |