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How do you feel about Apple collecting locations and other data from your device?

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SkyStudio

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It's been brought up several times , especially on April 20th at Where 2.0 conference in Santa Clara.

While we ourselves may not be any threat to anyone i find it to be a violation of our privacy because personal or not some companies and people do get stalked, this is going on with out our permission and we have no option to turn it on or off while yet paid allot for our devices

However, the information does not actually leave your device according to Allan and Pete Warden in this link.
http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/20/why-is-apple-recording-iphone-and-ipad-users-locations/

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Tim SPRACKLEN

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When you signed up to iTunes you didn't read the small print....we've all agreed to let Apple track our locations....

Buried in the small print is...


■ We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.


Tim
 

mobi1

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Although I don't have iPhone, iPad too collects user data.

I won't mind if companies collect bit of impersonal demographics info but keeping track of users entire whearabouts in iPhones is quite disgusting.

Apple also collects lots of data via iTunes (that's why you can't use Apple products outside iTunes).
 
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SkyStudio

SkyStudio

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mobi1 said:
Although I don't have iPhone, iPad too collects user data.

I won't mind if companies collect bit of impersonal demographics info but keeping track of users entire whearabouts in iPhones is quite disgusting.

Apple also collects lots of data via iTunes (that's why you can't use Apple products outside iTunes).

I understand that there is no way around the unique device ID for now or until the next court date when apple has to comply, but is there any way around this for users, does jail breaking make things better?

I do mind this idea, I have both major artists and advertising clients that are strict in privacy and confidentiality agreements between clients and employees, they have enough Feds running around to keep up after corporate fraud, corporate espionage, court cases with suspects doing crazy things going through red tape, loop holes, now imagine apple having rogue employees, selling data to competitors, companies who befriend apple can topple competitors with this info too, especially in the advertising industry, which is the countries for most vital and important media monster, who else pays the bills in all the broadcast stations right,

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peled

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Read This:

The purpose of this is offline GPS. Normally, each cell tower has an identifier and Core Location sends that identifier to Apple and asks for the lat/lon for that tower. This requires a data connection, and the use of data. Since cell towers don't move, however, it's inefficient to keep going back to Apple for that information so they cache it. Now if a tower appears with the same ID as the cache, tada! you have a cache hit and a faster fix with no data use. Which also means you can get a "coarse location" (as in rough) if you are near known towers and don't have a data connection.
That's all this is. It's a cache of identifiers (cell and wifi), locations, and their age (it's a cache, after all). Someone made the decision to never clean it out so they would have more and more information about those GPS "assists" (you know, A-GPS) and so they'd use less and less power and data over time for the places you frequent. It's a great idea, technically.
Practically, yes, you can track location over time. The file is readable only by root and you're free to encrypt your backups for now. I'm sure Apple will either encrypt the file or truncate the data in a future update (I would prefer encryption as I think it's technically sound, but I know many will disagree). I'm also sure someone is considering a toggle for the feature or a button to clear the database. Both are great ideas.
This isn't nefarious, this isn't being sent anywhere, and this isn't as bad as everyone is making it. This is a real feature with a major oversight. That's it.
Put your pitchforks down and please spread the word. Thanks.

How Apple tracks your location without consent, and why it matters : technology
 
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SkyStudio

SkyStudio

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You know what I'm wondering now, Samsung are a bunch of k u n t s as the Brits put it, seriously, and they added login keypad hardware to record what you type on their new laptops.

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fastfwd

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There are 2 distinct issues here.

How do you feel about Apple collecting your location data? If your turned on "find my ipad" with mobileme then you already agreed to give them that info in exchange for that convenience. They may decide to collect the info without asking you and that would be a completely different problem but I have not seen that this is the case.

Also... Your location info in stored locally on the info; not sure about the ipad. This is probably useful to locate cell towers or maybe it's just a log of which towers were used. This info is accessible by technical people including law enforcement who would want to know where you have been and this can lead to a 1984/big brother type of situation. Maybe this info should be encrypted with a password and maybe it is when you password protect your device; I don't know.
 

JJK

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Just add Apple to your list of followers. We are being followed everywhere we go and about everything we do. On one side we want the latest technology, but on the other hand we do not want to be disturbed.

This type of profiling of customer behavior is all around us. If you do not agree, stop using the internet and handphone. Back to the good old days.

Just my thoughts.

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SkyStudio

SkyStudio

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JJK said:
Just add Apple to your list of followers. We are being followed everywhere we go and about everything we do. On one side we want the latest technology, but on the other hand we do not want to be disturbed.

This type of profiling of customer behavior is all around us. If you do not agree, stop using the internet and handphone. Back to the good old days.

Just my thoughts.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

Public figures certainly are un comfortable with this so far, what's worse then your creative work been ripped off too

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JJK

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Let them stop Spam and virus attacks first. They are costing far more then Apple collecting some location points.

I do not hear anymore complaints about the data that is being collected and kept when a person wants to enter the US or other countries.

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SkyStudio

SkyStudio

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JJK said:
Let them stop Spam and virus attacks first. They are costing far more then Apple collecting some location points.

I do not hear anymore complaints about the data that is being collected and kept when a person wants to enter the US or other countries.

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News people have said that data has been collected where ever possible by both authorities and crooks, but for it to be collected by the same people you pay for the products is taking advantage of adding small print to fool them, understandable in any court regardless of it been there in print., it must be made more clear because it does concern many allot, if they knew about no one would buy the iPad or would if they could avoid the possibilities of their iPad 2 cameras streaming images while having sex, naked, farting or whatever in their privacy, btw location data and other user info is a new thing, hidden, . Monitoring your device like a intercom and remotely using it is old, would suk arse if apple violated these areas.

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Hasty

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This is a storm in a tea cup.

The info resides on your gadget to help your gadget perform better. Apple isn't interested in this irrelevant and unrewarding information so it doesn't collect, analyse or process the information in anyway unless you ask apple to locate your missing device.
No one else has access.

My phone tracks cell towers and it's logged by my provider, my streets are covered by cctv, my camera uses gps and even the goddamned tax office knows where I live.......
 

f4780y

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Less than 24 hours after this "scandal" went public (I personally have no problem with the location history, by the way), the Jailbreaking community has once again stepped up to the plate and a free tweak is avaialble in Cydia which continuously clears the offending log...

Its called "untrackerd" and is available from the standard BigBoss repo.
 

fuzzyfelts

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If you are a law abiding citizen and do no wrong (to the best of your ability), what's the problem? I'm not at all bothered either way.
 
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