Welcome to Your Great New Phone! (Also, We're Following You)
Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Tuesday, Jun 22, 2010
If you downloaded an App yesterday from the iTunes App Store, you might have noticed the need to agree to a new set of privacy terms. You may not have noticed this, buried inside the 50 or so pages of that policy: Apple Inc. is now collecting the “precise,” “real-time geographic location” of its users’ devices.
To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.
Although Apple has added a “Location Services” page under Settings—>General on the iPhone that allows users to prevent apps from using location information, it’s not clear if those settings prevent Apple itself from gathering and storing users’ location data. And as one study about Netflix points out (pdf), even anonymized data can be used to identify people.
Meanwhile, Google has acknowledged for some time that it collects geo-data from its Android phones. Here is their somewhat opaque description of what it collects and when:
If you use location-enabled products and services, such as Google Maps for mobile, you may be sending us location information. This information may reveal your actual location, such as GPS data, or it may not, such as when you submit a partial address to look at a map of the area.
Again, it’s unlikely that this or any other privacy policy “change” will matter much, so long as we all get our fancy new gadgets!
via LA TimesFiled under:
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Email: alexp at motherboard dot tv. @pasternack,
