The headlines were rather alarming. The Apple IPhone is storing data both on the phone and on the computer where you connect with ITunes that reveals all the places where you’ve accessed a cell tower. Who knows why? Who knows if other phones are doing the same thing.
Even though Apple doesn’t seem to be sucking the data to their own servers, apparently people are really concerned that hackers, estranged spouses, marketers and law enforcement (should I include lawyers in that nefarious list? OK, lawyers) could get access to this unencrypted data somehow.
YIKES!
So I downloaded the application and ran it to see just what these folks (I don’t have any estranged spouses I hasten to add! Yet! Dear!) might lean about me. Below is a screenshot of the resulting file. I can zero in closer and get more detail, but I don’t want EVERYONE to know EVERYTHING about me.Of course, this data doesn’t include my Foursquare checkins, Tweets and Facebook posts which all reveal far more.
So what does this reveal about me? I need to get out more. Apparently I don’t like to go anywhere except California and the Pacific Northwest. But who can blame me?
No. Not just an IPhone issue. But Apple is an easy target.
I don’t think this is an iPhone only problem. I believe many companies are tracking this sort of data, and we are giving them the power to do that. What is really scary, though, is that younger generations don’t seem to care at all about this.
Good post. They’re all getting in on the data mining action. This is a gold mine for these companies. Ultimately, monetizing the location data will be worth more than licensing the cell phone technology, which of course is bad news for our privacy.
Never before have big companies had such an intimate, personal view into the lives of their customers.
Apple, Google Collect User Data
Your smartphone is tracking you, and you said it was okay