• Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes. - G. K. Chesterton

Your iPhone is tracking you
By Anthony Coralluzzo  
Thu, 21/04/2011 - 12:06pm
Thu, 21/04/2011 - 12:06pm

Data scientists have discovered that Apple’s iPhone (and 3G iPad) is purposely logging a user’s location in a secret file on the device.

The file is then copied to the owner’s computer when the iPhone is synced.

Researchers say the recording of the data may have started with the iOS 4 software update, which was released in June 2010. 

Liberty Australia Director Anthony Coralluzzo says "iPhone users should be wary. They may be an issue with breach of contract and implied right to privacy and the fact that the government, being the monolith that it is, could have access to this information".

"If a company is tracking someone in a genuine free market economy without a breach of contract, that is, of course, permissible. When a large 'private' company that probably has numerous government-ordained privileges tracks you in a heavily socialised economy, you can't apply the same logic."

Security researchers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allen broke the story at radar.oreilly.com that ever since iOS 4 arrived on iPhones and iPads, the devices have been recording where you've been and holding up to a year's worth of private data that, according to Warden and Allen, isn't actually private at all.

Thu, 21/04/2011 - 7:19pm — Michael Conaghan

Is there a breach of

Is there a breach of contract? You do not have a right to privacy.

"But is there really such a right to privacy? How can there be? How can there be a right to prevent Smith y force from disseminating knowledge which he possesses? Surely there can be no such right. Smith owns his own body and therefore has the property right to own the knowledge he has inside his head, including his knowledge about Jones. And therefore he has the corollary right to print and disseminate that knowledge. In short, as in the case of the “human right” to free speech, there is no such thing as a right to privacy except the right to protect one’s property from invasion. The only right “to privacy” is the right to protect one’s property from being invaded by someone else. In brief, no one has the right to burgle someone else’s home, or to wiretap someone’s phone lines. Wiretapping is properly a crime not because of some vague and woolly “invasion of a ‘right to privacy’,” but because it is an invasion of the property right of the person being wiretapped." ~ Murray Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty Chapter 16
 

It is obviously a fairly underhanded action and Apple make take a hit to their reputation. However, if you don't like being tracked, then don't use the iphone.

Sun, 24/04/2011 - 9:17am — Anthony Coralluzzo

There's an issue with breach

There's an issue with breach of contract AND the fact that the government, being the monolith that it is, will have access to this information.

If a company is tracking you in a genuine free market economy, without a breach of contract, that is, of course, admissible. When a large "private" company (one that probably has numerous government-ordained privileges) tracks you in a heavily socialised economy, you can't apply the same logic.

Thu, 03/05/2012 - 12:25am — dan

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/iphone-tracking-view-data-turn/#comments