I expect this sort of thing from Google, not Apple

[George Knighton]

I know we are the most watched nation in the world here in the UK,it will only be a matter of time untill some bright spark of a lawyer will use this.

In the UK, you believe that the more information people have about you, the safer you are. Whenever you step out of doors in the Greater London area, you are almost certainly being photographed and can be tracked if necessary.

In the USA, we have not been able to progress beyond more ancient concepts of civil liberty (which are concepts we have in common with the UK), chiefly because (1)about 1/2 the US population is so conservative you wouldn't believe it, and (2)we do not have any way to properly regulate any abuses of civil liberties.

On paper, there are statutes in the United Kingdom that would scare the hell out of civil libertarians in the United States.

But our system is different. You have a huge and powerful civil service in the UK. Sir Gus O'Donnell shadows everything the Prime Minister does, and in The Queen's name he can find out whatever he wants any time that he wants it. It is the civil service, for example, that heads up your Joint Intelligence Committee, not the politicians.

It is different here. There's no BODY, no Crown, no civil service that would stand in the way of a runaway government, and in the USA people are permanently paranoid about it.

It is a problem. As we experience first hand that we need more and more information in order to make the people safe, we are going to have to find a way to make the people feel safe about who is collecting the information, how it is being done, and why.

 

[boss.king]

Seriously, what is anyone going to do now that they know where you shop and work. I could probably find that all out simply by having your name and doing a few simple searches (which anyone interested in you would already have). People just love conspiracy theories.

 

[macingman]

This data is only stored on the phone/syncing computer and not sent to Apple or any other company for that matter (at least for now). And why would someone steal your phone/computer and then try and track you down? So they walk up to you and be like "hey I stole your stuff"?

In other words, don't worry at least for now. There are many other ways of your location being tracked, for instance I could if I tried, I could probably be able to get a hold of your IP address and find the location you posted from using that.

 

[sorchard]

I'm sorry, but I am truly laughing at the ignorance of some thinking that Apple is the first to track movements of the phone. How dare they!

Does Apple need to track this?

You've been tracked LONG before this by your cell carrier. Even before smartphones existed.

Plenty of legitimate reasons. Network planning - they need to know where people use their phones in order to plan where to add capacity. They may also be required to do so by law. Apple, meanwhile, does not.

Use a credit card?

Again, there are legitimate reasons. I would rather my card company blocked transactions and called me if my card was seen to be used in a place that isn't normal. Even if it is me legitimately using my card.

But is it really Apple thats tracking it? Your phone keeps a log of where you've been, it syncs it to your computer. But thats it. So is it really Apple tracking you? Or is it just a log of where you've been?

Is there a reason why the phone is doing it in the first place? Is it a new feature?

Want to stop being tracked? Easy enough. Don't have a cell phone. Stop using credit cards or debit cards. Don't drive on toll roads or drive on roads that have any type of traffic cameras. Etc.
Go analog boys.

Apple could help by not storing information that they don't really need to store. At least my Android phone asks me if Google can periodically store my location.

Driving a car, using a debit/credit card are pretty normal parts of living in today's world. The same is not true for a phone manufacturer spying on its customers.

 

[VulchR]

...
As for "massive invasion of privacy" I simply cant agree. There is no more information gleaned from this as there is from street cams watching your car go by.

Not everybody drives - some of us walk.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Apple could help by not storing information that they don't really need to store. At least my Android phone asks me if Google can periodically store my location.

I agree with everything else except this statement. What you don't know is if somewhere in the OS, it is collecting your information and storing it / sending it to someone you don't know about. Yes, legitimate uses ask, but this seems to be something more nefarious; it can be on your Android and it just hasn't been found out.

I don't think it is anything evil, but I would like to know WHY they are doing it.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Not everybody drives - some of us walk.

Old School! At least get a Segway, what do you think this is, the 90's?

 

[VulchR]

The issue here is whether Apple's Terms of Use allow the user to conclude reasonably that a log of their location will be stored in an unencrypted file. I've read he terms of service and the answer is 'no'. The problem is not so much Apple per se, but others who could hack the phone or computer and obtain the information. In the UK there is currently a scandal in which reporters have allegedly illegally hacked into the voice mail of various people, so human nature suggests to me that Apple's user-position log will inevitably be abused.

As for those who accused me of being an Apple fanboy - well, I am an Apple fan. I do not believe Apple is the only company that does this sort of thing, but that doesn't mean I have to like it when they do. As for Google, they have been shown repeatedly to have violated people's privacy (Google Street View; WiFi network surveillance), although perhaps with benign intentions.

EDIT: I can't even use a Segwey (see here).

 

[MonkeySee....]

Wait... you expect this from Google?

Apple fanboy or just mentally challenged?

i'd say it was a pretty fair comment to be fair.

 

[VulchR]

Mentally challenged... hmm... does having a PhD in neuroscience count?

 

[macingman]

Apple could help by not storing information that they don't really need to store. At least my Android phone asks me if Google can periodically store my location.

You use an Android phone, so why are you so concerned about the iPhone, it doesn't affect you. Also if you think Google isn't tracking you with your Android phone then your wrong. Also again Apple isn't collecting this location data it is being saved to a file on the phone and the computer and not being sent to Apple, at least for now.

 

[Stealthipad]

You use an Android phone, so why are you so concerned about the iPhone, it doesn't affect you. Also if you think Google isn't tracking you with your Android phone then your wrong. Also again Apple isn't collecting this location data it is being saved to a file on the phone and the computer and not being sent to Apple, at least for now.

How do you know that Apple is not collecting this information when you connect your iPhone and iTunes pops up on the screen?

The software was written and installed for a reason, NOT to just let the data sit there.

 

[VulchR]

Here is a link for a program that decodes the file and displays a history of your location on a map. It seems to be OK, but of course be cautious of any software downloaded from the net.

I used the program and I am amazed at how inaccurate some of the positions are. It looks to me like the positions recorded are with respect to cellular towers rather than GPS - I go walking in a national wildlife refuge by me (Tentsmuir Forest) all the time, but no hotspots are shown there. Instead sites surrounding the forest are shown, which indicates to me they must be the locations of telecommunications masts.

 

[sorchard]

I agree with everything else except this statement. What you don't know is if somewhere in the OS, it is collecting your information and storing it / sending it to someone you don't know about. Yes, legitimate uses ask, but this seems to be something more nefarious; it can be on your Android and it just hasn't been found out.

Always a possibility, but I'm not convinced. My phone didn't come from a particular network so there is no operator customisations that might be spying on me, and I'm not so sure Google is going to spy on me even if I say no when the phone asks. Third-party applications could do so; but it tends to be well publicised when an app is doing something it shouldn't, and besides, if you're paranoid, you can check the capabilities that the app is asking for when you download it. I don't think the App Store does that.

You use an Android phone, so why are you so concerned about the iPhone, it doesn't affect you. Also if you think Google isn't tracking you with your Android phone then your wrong. Also again Apple isn't collecting this location data it is being saved to a file on the phone and the computer and not being sent to Apple, at least for now.

Why do you think that owning an Android device stops someone from owning an iOS device too? Do you have proof of Google's alleged nefariousness? After all, the phone asks me whether I want to send location data to Google. If they're doing it regardless of the answer to that question, then don't you think it would have come out by now (especially since Android is open source - the source code is available for review by anyone).

Regardless of whether or not it is being sent to Apple, why is it there? Do they need to keep it? Could it be a potential security risk? (i.e someone is able to get it off your phone and get a very rough idea of where you've been)

 

[NicoleRichie]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Nothing new. Get used to it.

 

[macingman]

Could it be a potential security risk? (i.e someone is able to get it off your phone and get a very rough idea of where you've been)

I don't consider it a risk. Unless your jailbroken it is hard for someone to hack into the "hidden" files of the phone without having the phone on them. Also I'm really not concerned with these details being on my phone. Afterall I very often check-in with Facebook Places and if I was concerned with people tracking me down I wouldn't be using Facebook at all.

 

[VulchR]

I don't consider it a risk. Unless your jailbroken it is hard for someone to hack into the "hidden" files of the phone without having the phone on them. Also I'm really not concerned with these details being on my phone. Afterall I very often check-in with Facebook Places and if I was concerned with people tracking me down I wouldn't be using Facebook at all.

The files are automatically backed up on the computer with which you synchronize the iPhone. An open source app in Mac OS X can read the file easily (see link above).

 

[Stealthipad]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Nothing new. Get used to it.

I will not "get used to it"!

I expect Apple to explain what the software is doing there and offer the option to remove it.

YOU "get used to it". Not everyone just drives back and forth to work everyday.

 

[macingman]

The files are automatically backed up on the computer with which you synchronize the iPhone. An open source app in Mac OS X can read the file easily (see link above).

I know that. I'm saying I already have my location on my Facebook profile so anyone that wants can view my location without needing access to my phone/computer or special application for reading the information. I am really not concerned.

 

[abc123]

I use foursquare anyway so if people really what to see where I've been they can. I'm not really sure what anyone could do with this information besides what they could do if they asked me where I was or physically follow me.

If someone really wanted to stalk me then there are other way ways of figuring our where I am anyway... like actually following me...

 

[darkplanets]

This is a massive invasion of privacy,who the ****** do they think they are!!!!...apple should be renamed big brother....stinks....u can stick your poxy phone right where the sun dont shine!!!

You're new to the Internet, aren't you? EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IS MONITORED AND LOGGED.

People who track your every movement:
-Your ISP
-Your cellphone provider (cell tower location)
-The government
-Third party cookies, when enabled for the current session
-Flash LSOs can
-Any website you visit can log your stay and interaction as well
-Everyone on the Internet when you post a picture taken from your phone... your GPS location is in the EXIF data

Your information (ip, viewing history, etc) and location is already out there, and has been for some time.

A proxy only masks your IP address, and that's usually only over TCP, since most public SOCKS proxies won't take UDP. Furthermore, it doesn't hide your traffic... you can still sniff and inspect packets. A VPN is a better choice, but still, nothing's perfect. Your ISP knows all, or rather, CAN know all. TOR isn't ideal due to network overhead, and again, if one of the nodes isn't maintained, it's possible to compromise that data as well-- not to mention the outbound traffic from the last node isn't encrypted. There's no perfect solution, since the whole point is to connect to other people, servers, and devices.

EDIT: Forgot to mention E911... they can access your GPS data if you allow it (in the US)-- I don't know how overseas works. You can enable or disable this, but if I had to guess there's a back door, like pretty much everything.

 

[darkcurse]

Nothing new. See here and here.

 

[Dumbledorelives]

This is nothing new. Android does this. Why do you really care? Even if the government is secretly spying in on these data logs and tracking your every step, which it isn't, the only thing it could possibly do is make you safer. seriously, who cares where you are? No one. The taxi driver who stole your iPhone isn't going to hack into the logs, find your house and murder you in your sleep.

And, by the way - if you turn location services off, it actually does stop recording your location in this log. Whoever said it doesn't is wrong. However, your cell provider will still be tracking you through triangulation, so does it really matter? You're going to be tracked either way.

 

[ClutchThese]

you could always get rid of your cell phone...and credit cards...and internet connection...and gps units...and any identification cards... You may want to move to Montana and buy a log cabin and totally close yourself off from civilization.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

This is nothing new. Android does this. Why do you really care? Even if the government is secretly spying in on these data logs and tracking your every step, which it isn't, the only thing it could possibly do is make you safer. seriously, who cares where you are? No one. The taxi driver who stole your iPhone isn't going to hack into the logs, find your house and murder you in your sleep.

And, by the way - if you turn location services off, it actually does stop recording your location in this log. Whoever said it doesn't is wrong. However, your cell provider will still be tracking you through triangulation, so does it really matter? You're going to be tracked either way.

Turning off Location Services switches GPS off. Triangulation will still be active and hence your location can/will still be recorded.

When you switch on My Location>Use wireless networks on in Android, a Location Consent disclaimer appears and you can either Agree or Disagree to let Google collect anonymous location data. If you select Disagree you can still use GPS but WiFi triangulation will not work and Google will not collect location information. Don't try to imply that Google automatically logs every step a la Apple without you consent.