How Apple tracks your location without consent, and why it matters

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/04/how-apple-tracks-your-location-without-your-consent-and-why-it-matters.ars

by shawndumas • 15 years ago

84 35 15 years ago

pdenya• 15 years ago

I haven't seen any mentions of this data being sent to Apple. Until that comes out, I'd prefer to turn this tracking off but I don't particularly care about it.

It's not like anyone can get access to it without breaking into your computer and it's not a real time feed. On top of the fact that it's only recording the gps location of the cell tower you're connected to (supposedly) it seems about as much of a security issue as my 4square feed.

sigzero• 15 years ago

From everything I have read, it doesn't go to Apple at all and the data isn't very accurate. This is a non-starter to me.

thrill• 15 years ago

Kinda like saying one didn't inhale.

mbailey• 15 years ago

But it's cooler to PANIC!!!

edit: just looked at the article and the image at the top. Ha.

justsee5• 15 years ago

I'm not sure why there's a tendency to evaluate the security / privacy implications of technology at an individual level when it has societal reach.

Yes in your instance, evaluated from an individual perspective, it seems absurd to worry about some imagined nefarious types breaking into your computer to get data like this.

But analysing the implications from an individual perspective is akin to forgoing fuzz testing on a web app because you'd never type all those sorts of inputs in as a normal user.

These things should always be analysed from a societal perspective. Having this type of data unencrypted means the father going through a child custody case may find all his movements lifted by a private investigator, the local politician who frequents a red light district may be at even greater risk of blackmail, and the small-town activist may find themselves harassed in new and interesting ways by local police of dubious moral character.

When presented with plausible scenarios like this there are certainly people who would still shrug and say, "I still don't care". That's fine - they're just not the people you'd trust to debate these issues, just like you wouldn't trust them debating internal security issues in a corporate environment.

tedunangst3• 15 years ago

It sounds like the only people you want to debate with are people who already agree with you.

bajsejohannes• 15 years ago

As a data addict, I actually wish my phone had this feature :)

sixcorners• 15 years ago

Doesn't Google Latitude do something similar? What phone do you use?

sp332• 15 years ago

It does, but you have to turn it on: https://www.google.com/latitude/b/0/history

radicaldreamer• 15 years ago

Without consent? You have to have location services turned on and they're off by default when you get your phone.

198d• 15 years ago

I believe the article mentioned that the data comes purely from triangulating your position with what cell towers you are connected to. The consent related to location services seems to be only related to the GPS data. The author mentioned a trip to China where he turned off cell data services and used the GPS and Wifi and that none of those locations were tracked in the file.

thought_alarm2• 15 years ago

  I believe the article mentioned that the data comes purely
  from triangulating your position with what cell towers you
  are connected to.

Correct. Wi-fi triangulation data is cached in a different file (which is also stored in your backups).

  The consent related to location services seems to be
  only related to the GPS data.

No, Location Services includes everything: Cell tower triangulation, Wi-Fi triangulation, and GPS.

allwein• 15 years ago

You need to have both enabled in order for any logging to occur.

Let's explore the 4 scenarios:

Cell Off, GPS Off: Nothing to log.

Cell On, GPS Off: Phone knows what towers it can see, but can't set the location.

Cell Off, GPS On: Phone knows where it is, but can't see towers.

Cell On, GPS On: Phone can see towers, and knows location. Logs this data.

markstahler• 15 years ago

Having location services enabled and recording location history are two completely different things. A am very surprised more people are not concerned about this. Wonder if Microsoft or Google is doing the same thing on their phones.

HedgeMage• 15 years ago

I think the kind of people who would be concerned about this sort of thing don't buy iProducts.

Aloisius• 15 years ago

Well considering AT&T can just as easily log the same thing and you wouldn't need to go to all the effort of going to someone's house and confiscating their computer and/or phone, I'm not sure why anyone should be any more concerned than they already are.

lawnchair_larry• 15 years ago

Because no one other than AT&T is AT&T, obviously.

cydonian_monk• 15 years ago

When this story broke this morning, my first thought was "this must be something related to or used by the MobileMe 'Find My iPhone' feature." I'm not entirely convinced of that, but I'm willing to wait for the official 'reality distortion field' answer before I start grumbling. Even then it may not really bother me.... It's not terribly different from how my car phone provider back in the mid-90s provided triangulation "guesses" for call locations. (It's just always on.... but in that respect so is my phone.)

What does bother me, though, is how easy this data is to get to.

thought_alarm2• 15 years ago

All of the data on your phone is easy to get to. If privacy is a concern then you should encrypt your backups (regardless of which smartphone you happen to use).

dilap• 15 years ago

Good to know, I suppose, if you're worried about a spying spouse, but hard to care much -- the carriers are already tracking you anyway, after all. (And probably monitoring texts and phone calls, too (a la Carnivore). Or am I too cynical?)

justsee5• 15 years ago

That's actually the point of the article - law enforcement does have access to tracking data, but the barriers to access are high.

By storing a user's data in an easily-accessible, unencrypted way the barriers are low enough that private investigators, stalkers, and other unsavory types have a similar level of access to someone's data, but with none of the legal hoops and hassles.

tedunangst3• 15 years ago

If stalkers and other unsavory types have unmonitored access to my computer and phone, them getting a file listing places I've been is the least of my worries.

chrishenn• 15 years ago

Don't all cell phones ping cell towers frequently? My local search and rescue uses this feature somewhat often. It's helped out in more then a few cases.

Terretta• 15 years ago

He added, he continued... These are press release words. I wonder why they're showing up here?

SoftwareMaven2• 15 years ago

I'm disappointed with Ars on this one. There is a lot of fear-mongering in the article with a strong implication Apple is taking the data. There is not any evidence the data is being used by Apple at all.

Yes, the file should not be in the clear (it probably shouldn't exist in its current uncapped form), but can we stick to the facts, please. When we know something is being sent to Apple, we can turn on the hate.

bxr3• 15 years ago

It seemed pretty factual to me. I wouldn't exactly call it fear-mongering, an actual portrayal of the situation is fear-educing enough. It would be irresponsible for Ars to not point out the ways this data could be compromised and the severity of that happening.

>Yes, the file should not be in the clear

No, that file should not exist at all.

>When we know something is being sent to Apple, we can turn on the hate.

So it doesn't matter that they're collecting the data to begin with? At all? I'd prefer to be asked for permission, not for forgiveness after the fact. Only what they decide to do with it matters? Even though they've left it lying around for a year in a format you admit was inadequate?

SoftwareMaven2• 15 years ago

The problem I have is I don't see it as "they" are collecting the information. It is information I am collecting on my phone (until proven otherwise). Concerns about Michegan abusing my data should engender outrage...at Michegan for violating the fourth amendment.

I'm not keen on the file and will take steps to nuke it, since I jailbreak. I just thing the the level of anger is premature, until we know why the file exists (eg does it give me a better experience) or we know Apple or Google are taking the data off my phone.

tuhin• 15 years ago

As far as "without consent", one can as well go to Settings>Location and see all the apps which access your location.

Also a point to note is the device these are on (iPhones and iPads) is making them accessible to these, so saying "without consent" seems like the wrong word. The device will have that information by default and nature of it being the middle layer.

Why Apple is putting it in an unencrypted format is a different story altogether.

locopati• 15 years ago

When you consider something like this...

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/michigan-police-can-scan-a...

...where the Michagan State Police believe that your cell phone data is searchable without a warrant, something like your cell phone storing your locations does matter. I'm a bit surprised to see this being hand-waved away by many of the commenters.

How Apple tracks your location without consent, and why it matters

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