And everyone else (and his dog) is on the game, too …
- http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/05/02/1724231/Tom-Tom-Sells-GPS-Info-To-Dutch-Cops
- “As smartphones with GPS capabilities wear away at the dedicated GPS market, vendors like Tom Tom need to find new revenue streams. Tom Tom decided it would be a good idea to ‘share’ (i.e., sell) aggregated data from their users to Dutch law enforcement. The company claims they assumed that the data would be used to improve traffic safety and road engineering, and were shocked, shocked to discover that instead the police used it to figure out the best places to put speed traps.”
- “Tom Tom’s sleazy way to make up GPS revenue shortfall” by Chris Nerey (IT World; 2011.04.29) – http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/160861/tom-toms-sleazy-way-make-gps-revenue-shortfall
- … TomTom NV, Europe’s largest navigation device maker, went into damage control mode Wednesday after it emerged that Dutch police have been using data collected from drivers who use the company’s products to set speed traps.
Earlier, TomTom had reported weak first quarter earnings in which it cut 2011 sales forecasts and said it was seeking to compensate for a decline in demand for personal navigation devices by growing service revenues, including selling traffic data to governments.
… - “GPS Maker TomTom Submits Your Speed Data To Police” (SlashDot; 2011.04.28) – http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/04/28/1719247/GPS-Maker-TomTom-Submits-Your-Speed-Data-To-Police
- “The GPS systems in TomTom’s Live range all feature built-in 3G data cards, which feed location and route information back to a central server. According to CNET, this data, along with users’ speed information, is being made available to local governments and the police.”
From the article: “Knowing the cops can see where you’re driving and how fast you’re going is eye-opening stuff, but TomTom says the data is anonymous and can never be traced back to an individual user or device. Ordinarily, we’d be reassured by this, but we recall Apple saying something similar before the location-tracking excrement hit the phone-carrying fan.” - “TomTom admits to sending your routes and speed information to the police” by Rory Reid (CNET UK; 2011.04.28) – http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cartech/tomtom-admits-to-sending-your-routes-and-speed-information-to-the-police-50003618/
- … The sat-navs in TomTom’s Live range all feature built-in 3G data cards, which feed location and route information back to a central server, which allows TomTom to create a map of congestion hotspots. It’s now emerged that this data, however, along with a user’s speed, is being made available to local governments and authorities.
TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn revealed the information on the company’s website. “We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit,” he says.
Knowing the cops can see where you’re driving and how fast you’re going is eye-opening stuff, but TomTom says the data is anonymous and can never be traced back to an individual user or device. Ordinarily, we’d be reassured by this, but we recall Apple saying something similar before the location-tracking excrement hit the phone-carrying fan.
… - “TomTom admits police used data for speed traps” by Toby Sterling (Forbed/AP; 2011.04.27) – http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/04/27/business-telecommunications-equipment-eu-netherlands-earns-tomtom_8438128.html
Androids, too …
- “Your Location ‘Extremely Valuable’ To Google” (SlashDot; 2011.05.02) – http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/05/02/0438206/Your-Location-Extremely-Valuable-To-Google
- “Your location ‘extremely valuable’ to Google” (International Business Times; 2011.05.01) – http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/139985/20110501/your-location-extremely-valuable-to-google.htm
-
… Then, just weeks ago Los Angeles-based researcher Samy Kamkar illustrated that Google Android based smartphones were sending precise GPS location and other data back to Google “several times an hour.”…
… The company is using this information to create a digital databases that include the physical location of hundreds of millions of Wi-Fi access points. Smartphones use those databases as a kind of electronic map to chart their own location. …… Moreover, beyond improving services like maps for end-users, it also positions the company in front a fast-growing location-based advertising market.…
… The problem, however, is if the data fall into the wrong hands, or if the data is compromised. …
… The data is precise enough that Kamkar says Google can correlate timing and frequency of phone usage to pinpoint an Android owner’s home address. …
… “If your phone is at the same location during night hours, they know where you live,” says Kamkar. “If your phone location is on the move, they can guess that you’re in a car and even calculate how fast your car is moving.” …
- “Your location ‘extremely valuable’ to Google” (International Business Times; 2011.05.01) – http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/139985/20110501/your-location-extremely-valuable-to-google.htm
- “Google Defends Way It Gets Phone Data” by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries (The Wall Street Journal; 2011.04.23) – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703387904576279451001593760.html
- “Apple, Google Collect User Data” by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries (The Wall Street Journal; 2011.04.22) – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html
- packetlss – Android location service cache dumper – https://github.com/packetlss/android-locdump
- “Android phones keep location cache, too, but it’s harder to access” by Chris Foresman (Ars Technica; 2011.04.22) – http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/android-phones-keep-location-cache-too-but-its-harder-to-access.ars
- “Android Phones Track Users Locations, Just LIke iPhones” by Jesse Emspak (International Business Times; 2011.04.21) – http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/137143/20110421/android-phones-track-users-movements.htm
iPhone doing surveilance, on whose behalf?
- “IPhone Stored Location in Test Even if Disabled” by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries (The Wall Street Journal; 2011.04.25) – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704123204576283580249161342.html
- “Why you should care about the iPhone location-tracking issue” by Brian X. Chen and Mike Isaac (WIRED; 2011.04.25?) – http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/04/25/iphone.tracking.wired/
- “The scoop: Apple’s iPhone is NOT storing your accurate location, and NOT storing history” by Peter Batty (geothought blog; 2011.04.24) – http://geothought.blogspot.com/2011/04/scoop-apples-iphone-is-not-storing-your.html
- “The Week in Tweets: Your iPhone Is Watching You” by Sara Yin (PC Magazine; 2011.04.25) – http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/263506/The-Week-in-Tweets:-Your-iPhone-Is-Watching-You
- “3 Major Issues with the Latest iPhone Tracking “Discovery”” by Alex Levison (at his blog; 2011.04.21) – https://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/3-major-issues-with-the-latest-iphone-tracking-discovery/
- 1) Apple is not collecting this data.
- 2) This hidden file is neither new nor secret.
- 3) This “discovery” was published months ago.
- “So What If iPhones Spy User Locations” by George Hulme (Information Week; 2011.04.21) – http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/229402104
- And, it appears, phones based on the Android operating system do the same thing, essentially. The location information is stored in files named cache.cell and cache.wifi.
- “iPhone Location Tracking Brouhaha in Perspective + Personal Status Note” by Lauren Weinstein (Lauren Weinstein’s Blog; 2011.04.21) – http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000843.html
- Some observers (many of whom seem to be rather hardcore Apple “fanboys”), appear to be attempting to minimize the seriousness of this situation, suggesting that it really isn’t a big deal since Apple reportedly isn’t routinely sending the collected location data to their own servers — some apologists even parroting the tired and dangerous meme that “if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear from such data being gathered.”
There’s also considerable speculation regarding the whys and wherefores behind Apple’s deploying this data mechanism.
None of this substantively changes the bottom line.
This isn’t rocket science. The collection of this data on these devices, especially in unencrypted form, is incredibly dangerous, stupid, and disrespectful of Apple’s customers.
In an age when U.S. Customs and now even local police departments are claiming the right to use specialized equipment to drain smartphones and laptops of their stored data without any kind of warrants or court orders, the presence of such comprehensive location data in these devices represents a treasure trove for everything from completely unreasonable law enforcement “fishing expeditions” to aggressive and nosy divorce attorneys. - “Researchers say iPhones can track users’ movements” 9BBC news; 2011.04.21) – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13162893
- “Why and How Apple Is Collecting Your iPhone Location Data” by Brian X. Chen (WIRED; 2011.04.21) – http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/apple-iphone-tracking
- “What Your iPhone Knows About You” by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries (The Wall Street Journal; 2011.04.20) – http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/20/what-your-iphone-knows-about-you
- “Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves” by Alasdair Allan (O’Reilly Radar; 2011.04.20) – http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/04/apple-location-tracking.html – A hidden file in iOS 4 is regularly recording the position of devices.
- “iPhone Tracks Your Every Move, and There’s a Map for That” by Brian X. Chen (Wired; 2011.04.20) – http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-tracks/
- “Report: iPhones secretly track their users’ locations” by John D. Sutter (CNN Tech; 2011.04) – http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/04/20/iphone.tracking/
- The unauthorized surveillance started in June 2010, when the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system was released, according to two researchers who say they discovered a hidden tracking file and posted it out of concern for users.
- “iPhones Secretly Track Your Every Move, Researchers Say” by Catharine Smith (The Huffington Post; 201.04.20) – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/apple-iphones-tracking-users_n_851532.html
- According to The Guardian, Warden and Allan discovered that devices running iOS 4 keep a record of time-stamped coordinates in a file called “consolidated.db.”
- “Apple Users, Beware: iPhones Secretly Tracking Location, Experts Warn” by Maxim Lott (Fox News; 2011.04.20) – http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/20/apple-iphone-users-beware-location-tracking/
- “Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves” by Alasdair Allan (O’Reilly Radar; 2011.04.20) – http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/04/apple-location-tracking.html – A hidden file in iOS 4 is regularly recording the position of devices.
- “iPhone keeps record of everywhere you go” by Charles Arthur (Guardian; 2011.04.20) – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears
- iPhone Tracker – http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/
Old and unrelated (or, is it?):
- The Snitch in Your Pocket (Law enforcement is tracking Americans’ cell phones in real time—without the benefit of a warrant), by Michael Isikoff (NEWSWEEK; Feb 19, 2010.02.19; from the magazine issue dated 2010.03.01): http://www.newsweek.com/id/233916
Related: Geolocation – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/geolocation/
Eikonal Blog 