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Researchers Disclose iPhone and iPad Location-Tracking Privacy Issues

aperry said:
Pretty sure it becomes personal when it's stored on your laptop!
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Pretty sure it is not personal if it does not identify you. Do you consider system logs to be personal or not. I don't consider system logs to be personal information and so I would not feel the need to protect them or hide them if my machine was in the shop for repair for example. It is diagnostic data, not "information".

Do you expect location services to work by magic without any data?

@ChazUK: Move on. You need to keep up. This looks like it is data mining for location services. It probably serves as a cache locally for speeding up location services on the device and for periodically updating the central database using anonymous data.

@androiphone: Personal information is information that applies to a person or institution. Statistical data about the networks in a particular area are not "personal". The same information could be gathered by other means such as a truck driving around. Unfortunately, when google did that last, they sniffed more than network names and were actually collecting information that had been encrypted and storing that in their database.
 
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androiphone said:
WTF I don't have an android phone!! go to Photos it has all your pictures by place



1. I don't live in the US so no apple can't, and
2. here in the UK we have specific laws on how your personal data can be shared, and pretty much the only way you could ever get a UK network to give up your data is a court order, this also specifically applies to companies sharing your info with other companies.

therefore in the UK apple could never get the info from the mobile networks, so they would have to (and have) build in the capability into the iphone.

not to mention iphones are sold sim free here, designed to be used on every network in the country and I severly doubt apple has gone to the trouble of signing location sharing deals with all of them, as it would be hideously impractical, much better to build it into the phone themselves.



like I said we all agreed to this location data collection in apples privacy policy and we have even agreed to have this information shared with 3rd parties (like I have already said there it doesn't look like it is being sent to apple), not reading the T&Cs or privacy policy (ie stupidity) is not a defence, https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/2...close-real-time-location-tracking-of-devices/

though like I have said if the data in the future does want to be sent to apple I would hope they have an opt out (like they do with targeted advertising by visiting a link in safari)
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Sorry, mixed you up with someone else in the thread, I guess it has to do with your nick.

You can turn off geotagging for the Camera.
 
Researchers Disclose iPhone and iPad Location-Tracking Privacy Issues

My file shows I've been to Cupertino, CA, 10 to 15 times.
That's about 2,000 miles from my home and I've never been there.
But, maybe my phone has.
 
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Well. I have to say that was one of the freakier experiences I've ever had on a computer. I downloaded that app, ran it, suddenly I'm looking at every place I've ever been on Earth in the last year. Some places I don't even remember going to.

I like how I didn't have to configure anything - it knew right where to look.
 
aristotle said:
@ChazUK: Move on. You need to keep up. This looks like it is data mining for location services. It probably serves as a cache locally for speeding up location services on the device and for periodically updating the central database using anonymous data.
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Are you going to provide a source for this or not and (once again), what about those that have disabled location services?
aristotle said:
Apparently, this is related to AT&T only and it is not based on GPS location services but rather a database of cell towers. It contains no identifiable information and is sent to AT&T for analysis for signal strength statistics.
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It's really difficult to "keep up" with such varied responses. You seem to hold the key to this mystery and could have an answer to all the news outlets/blogs asking why it is collectng this data.

Others are asking about sources of this knowledge (Source. (See what I did there?) ;)
 
This isn't surprising to me, considering all the rules in the PATRIOT act, that likely a lot of this is related to. This way, law enforcement can use your phone to track you to a crime or you can use this data to alibi out of an accusation. At least it appears to be stored on your own computer, whereas, I will bet you a dime to a doughnut that the same thing happens on an Android phone, but the data is stored with Google.

TEG
 
Who cares?

I mean that literally. Certainly no one who cares about not leaving a trace, because they wouldn't be walking around with a cellphone, or an account with a cellphone provider, or a credit card, or a modern car. Unless they haven't been paying any attention the last oh, twenty years. The rest of you might as well have figured that being traceable is worth the convenience of the functionality of your supersmart devices. That contextual search stuff Apple's been working on since they bought that company a year ago probably won't work worth a damn without this data.

Anyway, the data's redundant data and not getting shared, unlike the same info collected on the network level. ...and it's largely useless.

MUAAHAHAHAAAAAA.... look at all our POWER over these people! We can see a hundred million dots walking around on a map. Whoopee.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
Who cares?


MUAAHAHAHAAAAAA.... look at all our POWER over these people! We can see a hundred million dots walking around on a map. Whoopee.
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Well, it's just another step towards the Panopticon Singularity. Just one useful component of it. Conspiracy theorists used to imagine a day when we'd all receive some sort of tracking chip against our will. The genius of this was getting us all to *want* to carry a tracking chip around, and now everyone is.

Throw in a few recovered kidnapped kids, and our future as a surveillance society is assured.
 
I used the open-source application ("IPhoneTracker") to look at the data from my iPad. It doesn't appear to be very accurate.

The FAQ on the tool says this:
You can only animate week-by-week even though the data is timed to the second, and if you zoom in you’ll see the points are constrained to a grid, so your exact location is not revealed. The underlying database has no such constraints, unfortunately.

Why are some points in places I’ve never visited?
As far as we can tell, the location is determined by triangulating against the nearest cell-phone towers. This isn’t as accurate as GPS, but presumably takes less power. In some cases it can get very confused and temporarily think you’re several miles from your actual location, but these tend to be intermittent glitches.
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Nevertheless, I see lots of points that are up to 50 miles away from any location that I've ever been (absolutely known for a fact, haven't been anywhere near many of the points shown by the "iPhoneTracker" application). However, the great majority are clustered within the city and county where I live, so the data does seem somewhat correct.
 
Yawn, you can encrypt your iOS backups with a single click in iTunes. Also iOS itself does offer encryption if you enable data protection.

The only problem here of course is the fact that is these are not enabled by default, but I don't think they have to unless someone feels it is necessary. I do think Apple should warn people about the risks of running unencrypted.

This is sort of like people freaking out over the fact that Foursquare or Facebook Places can be used to track people. Although people tend to have to opt in to use those services, tracking is simply not a big deal to some people.

Wake me up when there is an actual security threat here. The data points aren't even that accurate, at best they tell you the general area where someone has been, not precise locations.
 
The map of where I have gone with my iPhone would be wholly interesting to anyone... even myself.

People like to think that someone else would actually care about this, but for 99.99% of people they wouldn't care and will never care.
 
silentnite said:
Lately in everything we do seems like somebody is watching and it's only going to get worse.
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The only thing I worry about is who is watching the watchers? I got no problem with surveillance, especially in private places. I have a problem with public surveillance without checks and balances. Which don't really exist in the current era where the public has no access to the information that should be public access (considering they pay for it with their taxes).
 
aristotle said:
Pretty sure it is not personal if it does not identify you. Do you consider system logs to be personal or not. I don't consider system logs to be personal information and so I would not feel the need to protect them or hide them if my machine was in the shop for repair for example. It is diagnostic data, not "information".

Do you expect location services to work by magic without any data?
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It's indeed personal if there is a file unknown to me, sitting in my laptop, which details every location I've been to in the last year and easily points out my home. It's especially personal is my laptop is stolen and I don't know that this data even exists.

Not sure what system logs has to do with this. Can you point me to a system log file which details every location I've been to in the last year? And no, IP addresses are not nearly this specific.

Your distinction between diagnostic information data and information is completely ridiculous. Diagnostic data *is* information! Period.
 
The government already has the right to:

  • Read everything you've ever written and saved on your computer any time you fly internationally
  • Photograph or manipulate your genitals any time you fly domestically
  • Track your phone whenever they want without warrant (pending appeal in California)
  • Video record your movement via proliferating public cameras in most cities
  • And here in New York, inspect your bags without warrant any time you take the subway.
    Furthermore:
  • Anyone can inspect your entire web browsing history via cookies, unless you go through careful procedures to block that
  • It's mostly legal for your boss to watch everything you do during the 1/2 your waking hours that you spend at work.
It seems like having a complete record of everywhere you've been for the last year available on your phone for thieves or the police to inspect will be seen as minor shift down the long slippery slope we've already accepted.
 
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But its common sense....

It's common sense to know that these devices will track you and transmit your habits. Pc's do the same thing. market research depends on the invasion of privacy. It will only get worse. From iphone tracking to being fingerprinted at Disney World. This is the country that people have 'allowed' to develop. They only push the limits because most people are comfortable with it. 'Officials' can see you naked at the airport now. Most people are okay with that. it doesn't take long for these events that not even 15 years ago would have been imaginable. To become normal. Well, at least the ipad doesn't take blood samples! But the police do in the UK. And they don't even need proper reason. :D What a World. The fall of the west is turning out to be a very interesting event.


But I do love my iphone. :p
:apple::apple::apple::apple:
 
**** Apple! Less than a year ago, SJ said he would never use unwanted location tracking, and here we are...

Anyhow, here's how you disable it:
Code: 
cd /private/var/root/Library/Caches/locationd/
rm consolidated.db
ln -s /dev/null consolidated.db
 
I spent a number of days traveling across Canada last year with my iphone turned off...

The whole route showed up in the log!!!

What is up with that???
 
twilson said:
Check Section 4b of the iPhone/iOS EULA, you agreed to it, if you're using your phone.
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Section 4b says nothing about this data being stored in a local unencrypted file. Section 4b also states that I should be able to turn it off with the location services switch, which apparently does not actually turn it off. That is my concern and I did not agree to it.
 
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