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Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

reuters.com

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Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#41

Post by ghshephard »

cratermoon wrote: post #22

So GPS for me but not thee? "Privacy experts have warned that any cache of location data related to health issues could make businesses and individuals vulnerable to being ostracized if the data is exposed." Apple and Google already have that data in-house, it's just as vulnerable as any data. How is this not an absurd stance?

I can't speak for Google, but I know that Apple goes out of their way not to have any clue where your are. For example, when you do mapping directions, you get issues multiple single-use codes, that are refreshed during the trip, so not only does Apple not know what directions you asked for, they can't even associate the trip with a single entity.

When you say, "Apple has the data in-house" - what are you referring to?

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#42

Post by uoaei »

AJRF wrote: post #17
jjgreen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Palantir is involved, I'd not touch it with a long stick https://tech.newstatesman.com/coronavirus/palantir-covid19-d...

Oh wow I had no idea Palintir was involved, I feel like I've finally turned in to the paranoid old fool that people laugh at, but this really upsets me to think of the millions of people who are going to install this without so much as a thought.

The thing about those paranoid old fools is that some of them are right. But where they are stuck at the level of trying to convince others to just "look with your eyes, see the truth right in front of you!" those with actual experience with praxis know it's much more fruitful to put your efforts toward political campaigns. Grassroots is a thing but it's always some weird combination of coercion and rhetoric about morals and ethics, because most people don't care so you have to make them care before the movement picks up steam.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#43

Post by gruez »

cm2187 wrote: post #38
lazyeye wrote: post #12

Does anyone else find this a little ironic given Google is a company that has been logging peoples location to a very fine detail for years

And Apple.

Apple logs location history? Other than the wifi location log from ios4 and the significant locations feature (opt in, device only), I don't know how apple is logging locations.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#44

Post by Spivak »

ramshorns wrote: post #8

Sure. It's maybe a bit unsettling to see a global corporate monopoly telling countries what they're allowed to do, but in this case it's the right thing.

I think it’s unsettling that were so used to companies and people with actual power doing fuck all to stand up to government abuses that it’s weird when it actually happens.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#45

Post by flipgimble »

Its interesting that they call this a "Contact Tracing app" even after changing the naming to ExposureNotification.framework

I think these restrictions are meant to win confidence with a somewhat skeptical public. This will also confine the apps to be single purpose for contact tracing only.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#46

Post by cm2187 »

gruez wrote: post #43
cm2187 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Apple.

Apple logs location history? Other than the wifi location log from ios4 and the significant locations feature (opt in, device only), I don't know how apple is logging locations.

Not only it does but I even remember a story of a crime that was solved in Germany a few years ago just by requesting from Apple the history of the locations.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#47

Post by buboard »

covid19 has become a buzzword factory. Politicians popularize terms like "herd immunity" , "crush the curve", "testing", "ventilators", "PPE" etc to appear to be doing something. "Tracing" is the next in line, but it's a total sham. No country has been able to contain the epidemic with bluetooth. And all the countries that manage the epidemic have first waited until they have very few cases , which can be traced manually, and they did isolation well. As long as there is a high number of active cases, tracing won't work.

So, it's good that apple+google are banning those apps because they would be useless and a damn spying vector.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#48

Post by cratermoon »

Spivak wrote: post #39
cratermoon wrote: post #22

So GPS for me but not thee? "Privacy experts have warned that any cache of location data related to health issues could make businesses and individuals vulnerable to being ostracized if the data is exposed." Apple and Google already have that data in-house, it's just as vulnerable as any data. How is this not an absurd stance?

It’s only absurd when you assume that access implies blanket authorization. Apple Maps is allowed to use my location for the purpose of providing me directions . Sure privacy policies are usually overly broad but for sure “to allow Mark in accounting to track his ex’s” aren’t part of it. I don’t see a contradiction in two large players refusing to cooperate with governments that want to slurp up people’s location dat…

It's the reasoning they give -- that it might be compromised and used for bad ends. That's already possible, Anyone genuinely thinks that the partitioning of data for different purposes provides any real privacy protections, I've got a LifeLock subscription to sell them.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#49

Post by taywrobel »

jjgreen wrote: post #11
AJRF wrote: post #3

I've been wondering about the UK contact tracing app because they seem to be deliberately misleading saying that data is secure on the phone, yet it's a centralised model, and they are using bullshit terms like "clinically secure algorithm" to describe the one-time codes; Is the source code of these apps something that could be FOI requested from NHSx seeing as it is publicly funded by the tax payer? Also they've alr…

Given that Palantir is involved, I'd not touch it with a long stick https://tech.newstatesman.com/coronavirus/palantir-covid19-d...

Having worked at Palantir, I’m curious which outdated misconceptions you’re still harboring?

It’s a giant federated search engine... that’s about it. They don’t even hold any data themselves, it all stays on site with the customer.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#50

Post by antipaul »

cm2187 wrote: post #38
lazyeye wrote: post #12

Does anyone else find this a little ironic given Google is a company that has been logging peoples location to a very fine detail for years

And Apple.

You can’t put Apple and Google in the same bucket when it comes to privacy.

Sure, neither is probably perfect, but only one of them is an egregious violator whose business model depends on surveillance capitalism

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