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Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

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Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#111

Post by famousactress »

Meh. Everyone sucks at press releases this week (thinking about you, Sony). This just seems so much more bloodless, dispassionate, and frank than it ought to. It's obnoxiously contrary to write "The iPhone is not logging your location."

I mean, really? That's just argumentative. My mom is gonna look at the location history visualizers people wrote and respond "Really, Apple? Cause this looks very much like log of my locations".

Somebody at Apple's PR needs an ass-kicking. This ought to be a video with a short transcription from someone on the phone team (not Jobs) that just explains it without getting defensive of semantically tricky.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#112

Post by epistasis »

diminish wrote: post #31
sounddust wrote: post #16

I often travel internationally (with no data roaming) and I've noticed that the iPhone's A-GPS is incapable of determining my location when I arrive in a new place, even if I've pre-loaded my route/maps in the maps application prior to arrival. But once I've connected to the internet - even for a few seconds - my phone is permanently able to track itself in that city, even after I've left and returned months later. I…

your need is too exotic and mainstream concerns about location/timestamp tracking on iphone are real, valid concerns.

The location/timestamp concerns are only relevant when my phone has been stolen or somebody has unrestricted access to my computer. At that point, location tracking is only one of many many terrible things that can happen to me, and frankly it's nowhere near the most terrible. And if I'm concerned about somebody tracking me, I'm going to be most concerned about the last 7 days, not the past year. If you're concerned about the government tracking you for longer than a year, they easily have access to that data without your ever knowing they looked.

The solution is to properly protect your data on your phone and your computer.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#113

Post by [deleted] »

diminish wrote: post #31
sounddust wrote: post #16

I often travel internationally (with no data roaming) and I've noticed that the iPhone's A-GPS is incapable of determining my location when I arrive in a new place, even if I've pre-loaded my route/maps in the maps application prior to arrival. But once I've connected to the internet - even for a few seconds - my phone is permanently able to track itself in that city, even after I've left and returned months later. I…

your need is too exotic and mainstream concerns about location/timestamp tracking on iphone are real, valid concerns.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#114

Post by adw »

rakkhi wrote: post #110
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #82

The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data? No. This data is sent to Apple in an ano…

>"Apple doesn't know it's me -- because the data is encrypted" Actually it is because the data is made anonymous not because it is encrypted. If they do this correctly they really don't know it is you.

This is intensely nerdy, but "encrypted form" can be jargon for what we'd mean by "anonymised" in certain contexts around personally identifiable information.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#115

Post by X-Istence »

nutjob123 wrote: post #90

A huge hole in this press release is how apps use location information. An app can easily log a user's location and send it anywhere along with whatever other data the app has access to.

Since you have to individually give each app permission you should go talk to the App developers. The apps use the location API that is available, and don't have direct access to the cache if that is what you are worried about.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#117

Post by jws »

mcantelon wrote: post #76
sudonim wrote: post #49

"The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly" A bug _you_ uncovered?

Two lies: the "bug" was uncovered a considerable time ago (August 2010 was when I read the first story talking about it) and was first exposed by third-parties (so if Apple did "uncover" it, they've been sitting on this discover for some time). https://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/3-major-issues...

You speak of the symptoms of the bug as if they were the bug, consider this one act play:

• The internet claims Apple is tracking all iPhone owners!

• Steve Jobs interrupts family time to exclaim "WTF!"

• SJ: "Minion! Verify this claim!"

• Minion: "It is true, to the extent that we keep large, possibly unbounded, volumes of cell tower and wifi access point in the cache for the purpose of…" SNICKER-SNACK… thump.

• SJ: "Engineering, fix this. Marketing, communicate this.", returns to family time.

• Engineering to engineer: "Fix this."

• Engineer to self: "I do not know why this happens, I will search and uncover this bug." • Marketing: "What? We were busy hiding the links on the home page until you respect our new iPad2, but ok, we can crank out a press release if it saves us from the vorpal blade."

DOWN CURTAIN // insert character development and pathos before first rehearsal

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#118

Post by ajdecon »

fredoliveira wrote: post #39
ajdecon wrote: post #13

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that: - reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, - ceases backing up this cache, and - deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off. Looks reasonable to me. The only thing missing that I'd like to see is an option to opt out of the tracking data (anonymous or not).

See, but that would be crazy. If what they're saying is true (and there's no reason to doubt it at this point), they're using this in order to provide you with a service: the ability for your phone to know where you are in your city. Calling it "tracking data" is wrong, even. Given their description of how the cell tower/hotspot data is used, it seems like deleting "this cache entirely when Location Services is turne…

I'll admit to typing "tracking data" after misreading the following bit of the release:

Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

"Tracking" vs "traffic". [shrug]

But I'd still strongly prefer to be able to opt out. GPS still works to find location without this data, it's just slower. I should be allowed to take that hit, for the trade-off of not sending in data. As biafra says below:

Tracking data is only anonymous if it cannot be de-anonymized. Since I cannot check that this is not the case (with Apple, Google and Skyhook) I have doubts about the so called anonymity.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#119

Post by lukeschlather »

sigzero wrote: post #74
lukeschlather wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I consciously want the iOS to fail. I want to be able to install any OS I want on my tablet without voiding my warranty, and Apple's done a great job of setting a trend against that. If Apple provides boot camp for the iPad, I personally will probably shut up and buy one.

Get a different tablet.

Locked-down bootloaders are the norm in the high-end tablet space, because Apple set the trend. Yes, there are a handful of freely modifiable ones, but I don't want my hardware choices constrained to those vendors which deign to let me use the hardware I've purchased as I please.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#120

Post by yaix »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #82

The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data? No. This data is sent to Apple in an ano…

>they are keeping a time-stamped list of nearby access points on my device, which effectively is a huge breadcrumb trail of everywhere

Read again. They are not. Its not timestamped when "you" where there, but when some anonynous iPhone picked up that particular hotspot. It got then uploaded to Apple and subsequently downloaded onto your iPhone, so that your iPhone can find its location easier.

Wasn't that kinda the obvious reason in the first place?

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