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Creepy App Watch

stephengilbert

Active member
Concerned about your privacy, iPhone users? Check out this story: http://digitallife.today.com/_news/...-iphone-is-secretly-tracking-you-all-the-time

It seems that iPhones and iPads keep a record of where you are, and store those locations in the phone/pad as well as in the computer to which they are synced. There's an application (iPhone Tracker) linked in the article which allows you to see a graphic mapping of those locations.

For what it's worth, physical access to your phone/pad or computer is required to access this information. So far.
 

Terry

New member
I think I ready that you can make sure through iTunes that this data can be encrypted but I will dig further and figure out how.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Concerned about your privacy, iPhone users? Check out this story: http://digitallife.today.com/_news/...-iphone-is-secretly-tracking-you-all-the-time

It seems that iPhones and iPads keep a record of where you are, and store those locations in the phone/pad as well as in the computer to which they are synced. There's an application (iPhone Tracker) linked in the article which allows you to see a graphic mapping of those locations.

For what it's worth, physical access to your phone/pad or computer is required to access this information. So far.
Since iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices carry integrated GPS capable devices in them, it's only natural that data generated by these devices include GPS metadata.

You can encrypt the backup data from any of them in iTunes by plugging in the device and clicking the setting on the Summary screen to "Encrypt iPhone/iPod/iPad backup", then entering a password.
 

stephengilbert

Active member
When a device is attached, the options box at the bottom of the Summary page allows you to encrypt iPad/iPhone backup, and set a password. I'm not sure how much benefit this is, but I'm also not sure the extent of the intrusion that's involved.

My reaction to this is that I don't like it, but I'm not sure exactly why. Clearly Apple thinks it will be able to make a profit from this information at some point. The information on my computer shows my being in Fort Lauderdale for a Capture Integration workshop last September. I didn't own the computer in September, and have reinstalled the OS on my iPhone since then. Apple wants to keep this information around.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
When a device is attached, the options box at the bottom of the Summary page allows you to encrypt iPad/iPhone backup, and set a password. I'm not sure how much benefit this is, but I'm also not sure the extent of the intrusion that's involved.

My reaction to this is that I don't like it, but I'm not sure exactly why. Clearly Apple thinks it will be able to make a profit from this information at some point. The information on my computer shows my being in Fort Lauderdale for a Capture Integration workshop last September. I didn't own the computer in September, and have reinstalled the OS on my iPhone since then. Apple wants to keep this information around.
There's no intrusion at all with encrypted backups. If you don't set the "store password into Keychain" button, you'll occasionally need to give it a password if you want to access the backup data.

The GPS position history is useful to track a device if it is stolen, to figure out where you were when you took such and such picture, etc. It happens to be on and running when the device is powered, that's all, just like the one embedded in your car if you have GPS map service features, like NavStar, etc. Oh, you didn't know your car also had a GPS tracking log in it ... ? Most of the higher end modern cars do.

The fact that people are shocked to discover this is what's shocking to me. Here a bunch of photographers are asking for their cameras to embed GPS metadata in every exposure, and they're surprised when their GPS enabled multipurpose hand-held computer has a log of its whereabouts in it.

It's easy to defeat the GPS logging: turn the darn thing off.
 
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