By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-04-27 15:41:38 | Word Count: 664
Well, would you look at this? It appears that all of your iPhone lovers out there just may be getting more than you bargain for with your uber-fantastic smartphone. As of late it has been discovered that iPhone is keeping recorded data of every step you take and storing this data and sharing it with devices that sync with the iPhone or iPad. The most disturbing aspect of this tracking is that iPhone is not the only ones privy to your location informationâ€"everyone is.
You’ve heard conspiracy theories time and time again about Big Brother always watching. Never did you imagine that Big Brother is sitting right there in your pocket. This seems a bit terrifying. I can’t, by any stretch of my imagination, come up with a justifiable reason for a cellular phone to record your every move; especially without permission.
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According to The Guardian, the file that saves your every location contains latitude and longitude on your iPhone with a timestamp which means that where you are, have been and frequent can all be accessed at any given time with a mere sync. Anyone who opens the file that backs up your sync can scroll through and see your entire location history. Let’s just hope that you’re not on the run or have a stalker pending because in that case you’re as good as caught.
It is unclear how far back the stored data dates at this point but it appears that there could be almost a years’ worth of data stored since this “feature” appears to have started with Apple’s iOS 4 updates back in June 2010.
According to Alasdair Allan, a data scientist who discovered the file and Pete Warden, another researcher who looked for similar tracking codes in [Googles] Android phones and couldn’t find any, “we haven’t come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this.”
I agree wholeheartedly with Simon Davies, director of Privacy International who went on to state “This is a worrying discovery. Location is one of the most sensitive elements in anyone’s life â€" just think where people go in the evening. The existence of that data creates a real threat to privacy. The absence of notice to users or any control option can only stem from an ignorance about privacy at the design stage.”
It is a pending theory that Apple may have implemented this tracking because it’s required for a new feature that they may be developing. Riggghhtâ€"of course that’s why! (please sense my sarcasm). If this were the case, why not notify users before hand? Why allow this intrusive file to be stumbled upon instead of broadcasted publically with the option of turning this ability off in personal iPhones?
This ordeal has just made the iPhone a lot less appealing. If privacy is the price that must be paid for a few cool applications then you can certainly count me out. The moment I hear that BlackBerry is using a file of this sort to track my every move, the last recorded location of mine will be near a garbageâ€"hmph.
