Odd report: your iPhone and iPad are tracking you

[Quexos]

Wouldn't just turning off your smartphone take care of the problem altogether ?
At least turning it off when you decide to go somewhere nobody needs to know about ?

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

a little tin foil takes care of that.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Wouldn't just turning off your smartphone take care of the problem altogether ?
At least turning it off when you decide to go somewhere nobody needs to know about ?

If it was that important, you might want to pull the battery out also. Oh ... wait an minute ... you CAN'T pull the battery out of an iPhone!

[Love.Forever.]

That's what I was thinking, a lot of times they ask for your location and then you think "well why would I need to do that?" I never accept that they can locate me... although with an iPod, I still wouldn't be surprised if they still can track you regardless if you allow the location thing or not.

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

a lot of the apps that folks want to have need to have location turned on in order to work. having location on by definition means you are being tracked. this had to have been a reality check for anyone with a smart phone from the get-go

[Avarwen]

How is this even news I have an I pod touch and some apps ask me if I would allow them to know my location. I just assumed that if I'm saying yes these apps know where I am at any given time.

[wodin]

It's not news, it's sensationalism. Haven’t you noticed that there is nothing else noteworthy in the headlines lately?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Anyone tracking my iPad will be convinced I never leave my living room sofa.

Actually, I thought it was interesting hearing this a few days ago... then, today, hearing a new news item on the radio describing how the GPS feature on the iPhone allows you to find it if you've lost it.

And you thought it was a bad thing!

Originally Posted by wodin

It's not news, it's sensationalism. Haven’t you noticed that there is nothing else noteworthy in the headlines lately?

Yeah, why talk about things like... oh, I dunno... Earth Day upcoming, a year after the BP oil spill?

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by basschick

been true of cell phones for years.

Yup. Cell phone tracking helped expose the Duke false rape accusations in 2006.

While you are not supposed to have to prove your innocence rather than the other way around in the US, some of the falsely accused were able to show they had left the party before the stoned striper returned and started raising hell.

So, if you are not up to something you shouldn't be the tracking can be helpful.

[AJ Starr]

How about if you're in an accident and no one knows where you are? I'd be glad of it then.

[FF2]

How about you are going for medical tests and it is nobody's business but yours.

At the moment it sounds like this file is not available "off the phone" but could that change? Obviously, there can be good uses for such data but there could be bad ones, too. It should be the owner's choice - not Apple's nor maybe the government's nor your employer.

[RockdaMan]

Research by a security analyst this week found that an Android phone collected location data every few seconds and sent it to Google several times an hour. Apple disclosed in a letter to Congress last year that its phones "intermittently" collect location data, and the company receives it twice a day.
--
On Friday, a Google spokesman said "all location sharing on Android is opt-in by the user."
However, this definition of "opt-in" doesn't mean the system is off by default for people who use the typical Android set-up.

Rather, when a user activates an Android phone, a screen appears saying Google's service provides location to applications and that it will collect anonymous data even when no apps are running.

The box to accept this is checked by default, but the user can uncheck it. For users who bypass this process entirely, location services aren't turned on.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...#ixzz1KTeI2yJW

[Ea]

Originally Posted by basschick

been true of cell phones for years.

Exactly. There's absolutely nothing new in this. Cell towers constantly keep track of your device in order for it to communicate with the system. But it was my understanding that usually it was the tel-com company who dealt with the data and they weren't stored locally. But with the growth of location-aware (and context-aware) technology it makes sense to use the data for apps on the device as well.

[Barcey]

For me the news here is how careless Apple is being with private data and that they are logging the data when they have no valid reason to do so. They can provide location awareness without logging the data.

It's obvious that Apple has the location awareness service and I like that you can enable and disable it by application but it's not acceptable that they would log a years worth of the unprotected location data and replicate it to any computer you sync with.

I find it disturbing that someone with two minutes of access to my niece's computer could lift a file that shows where and when she's been for the last year. I'm surprised that people just accept this when there's no valid reason for a company to be so negligent with personal data.

[elcreative]

Yawn... every time you use an Oyster card on the tube, every time you use a credit card, every time you use a debit card, every time you use a mobile phone, etc etc, you put your location on record never mind the traffic cameras, general CCTV nearly every where... lost battle. If you don't like your Apple/Android phone keeping tabs on you then turn it off... you'll lose a chunk of functionality from anything requiring location data but you'll be far less visible as long as you only ever use cash and probably make all your journeys underground via sewage tunnels...

[boxcorner]

The BBC news item makes the point that the data is stored in the device. Presumably, only Apple does this, hence all the fuss.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Presumably, only Apple does this, hence all the fuss.

Nope. Google does it, but does it differently.

As far as local storage, Android phones do keep a cache of user location data -- but, as researchers have demonstrated, it's a true limited cache as opposed to the comprehensive record created by iOS. The Android cache is visible only via administrator access. The cache contains only a user's most recent location entries, with older entries being deleted as new ones arrive.