iOS 8 tracks your physical activity by default

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8359494

by swiil • 12 years ago

7 12 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

- Step 1: prepare yourself - Step 2: open the "health" app - Step 3: open "health data" - Step 4: open "fitness" from the menu - Step 5: open "steps" - Step 6: WTF! - Step 7: search for other data your phone is keeping on you without letting you know and post it here.

swiil3• 12 years ago

I should say this is an iPhone 5s - I doubt the iPhone 5 has the features required to track steps.

Watabou2• 12 years ago

Yeah, this isn't new. This is what the M7 (and the M8 inside iPhone 6) does.

And more importantly, this data is never stored in the cloud and never leaves your device, according to Apple.

swiil3• 12 years ago

On by default? I'm not cool with that - are you?

Watabou2• 12 years ago

Yeah I am actually.

What does it matter when the data never leaves the device?

And it's not like it's draining your battery either. M7/M8 are very low power.

kolev• 12 years ago

Spying on you by default... A lot of people don't understand how much self-incriminating information there is in all that physical activity data. Imagine you're accused of committing a violent murder. And you own an iPhone. And you claim you were sleeping at that time. But your physical acitvity data shows otherwise.

coralreef• 12 years ago

Wouldn't they need to decrypt the data in the first place? But perhaps that digresses from the point...

r00fus• 12 years ago

The major problem is parallel construction. If the police can use this data - obtained illegally and surreptitiously using tools like accessdata or cellebrite to search for confirmation, they could extract a plea from you or find/manufacture other facts that do incriminate you or tear down your defense.

chaf2• 12 years ago

Install fitbit in ios7 on a iphone 5s. You will get the same result. I dont see this as a problem it doesnt track your gps only your steps.

runjake2• 12 years ago

It's not quite the same, because the first time you launch the FitBit app, iOS asks you if you want to give the FitBit app access to your motion data. This works the same with every 3rd party app.

With the Health app in iOS 8, it grants implicit permission and there is apparently no way to remove permissions to your motion data for the Health app.

Is that data going into Apple's cloud? I don't believe so. Is it a big deal to this cloud-conscious guy? Not really.

chaf2• 12 years ago

But when you give it access you can get data for a couple of weeks. So the m7 chip is keeping the data but you dont see it. I also believe that it only stored on the phone and I think this is a setting to get people to use healtkit.

swiil3• 12 years ago

Bottom line for me - this feature is on by default. This should be an option. Deleting the data from the device should be available and it's not. Regardless of if the data was encrypted or not it's existence creates the potential for privacy violations. It's not far fetched to assume that your insurance company will inevitably ask you to share this info before issuing a policy. Isn't this blatant lack of concern for privacy why we're all here? I'm scared about the lack of our concern.

iOS 8 tracks your physical activity by default

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