location

DOJ wants wireless providers to store user info

The U.S. Department of Justice today called for new laws requiring mobile providers to collect and store information about their customers, a proposal that pits it against privacy advocates and even other federal agencies.

Jason Weinstein, the deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division, picked an odd place to describe the department's proposal: a U.S. Senate hearing that arose out of revelations about iPhones recording information about owners' locations, and, in some cases, transmitting those data to Apple without consent.

Nevertheless, Weinstein said, "when this information is not stored, it may be impossible for law … Read more

Senate iPhone hearing preview: Don't single out only apps

New privacy laws should not single out only mobile app developers, a trade association representing small software companies is planning to tell a Senate committee tomorrow.

Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, said in an interview with CNET this afternoon that any legislation arising out of the recent controversy over Apple iPhones and location tracking should be broad, not narrow. (See a list of related stories.)

"If you're going to put some privacy legislation in place, it shouldn't be some piecemeal regulation of some small portion of the technology industry because it's new … Read more

Apple VP Tribble to appear at Senate location privacy hearing

Bud Tribble, Apple's vice president for software technology, will testify at next week's hearing on mobile devices and privacy, a U.S. Senate committee said today.

Tribble is a Silicon Valley veteran whose resume includes co-founding NeXT Computer and heading the original Macintosh software team in the 1980s that designed the Mac user interface. (Here's an earlier interview he did with CNET about OS X security.)

Sen. Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who heads a subcommittee on privacy and technology, convened next Tuesday's hearing in response to reports that mobile devices either store location data or … Read more

iOS 4.3.3 arrives, patches location database

Apple today released, as promised, an iOS update addressing location-tracking behavior, and the security of that information on its portable devices.

iOS 4.3.3, which is a free update delivered through Apple's iTunes software, reduces the size of the "crowdsourced" location cache, no longer backs up the cache to iTunes in the form of a device recovery image, and deletes the cache when a user turns Location Services off.

Two of those issues--the size of the database, and the failure to delete the cache from the device--Apple had called "bugs" when addressing the issue … Read more

EU official says Sony, Apple need to rebuild trust

Sony and Apple could face a backlash from EU data protection officials following recent privacy-related issues surrounding their flagship products.

During a speech earlier today in Brussels, Belgium, European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding noted that both companies needed to rebuild customer trust, saying "those in charge have to take the relevant technical and organizational measures to guarantee protection against data loss or an unjustified access."

The speech, which was covered by Bloomberg, comes days after Sony's announcement that as many as 100 million user accounts were exposed as part of an attack targeting its PlayStation Network … Read more

iOS 4.3.3 said to address location issues

Apple is said to be nearing completion on iOS 4.3.3, the software update that will address what Apple has called "bugs" that keep extended logs of locations stored on the iPhone and iPad.

Boy Genius Report, which has been accurate about details of upcoming iOS versions ahead of release and claims to have a copy of the new software, says the new build fixes two of the issues Apple brought up in its location tracking missive from last week.

Adjustments within the new update reportedly include: no longer backing up the subset of Apple's location … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: The location-tracking dilemma

Today we are talking about the fallout from the research reported on April 20 at the Where 2.0 conference that Apple iPhones and iPads keep detailed logs of their locations, and that this information is potentially viewable by Apple, the police, or hackers.

Roundup: Geotracking controversy homes in on iPhone

Since that story broke, it's been revealed that Google Android and Microsoft Windows 7 phones also log user location as well. In a related development, GPS maker TomTom was revealed to be sending location and speed data to police departments to enable them to install red-light cameras where they'll be most effective. That wouldn't be so bad, perhaps, if TomTom didn't also sell its users GPS map updates that included the locations of those cameras.

So location recording is in the news, and that's what we're talking about today. What's recording your data, why devices need this information, who's getting it, why you might care, and what you can do about it if you do.

Our guests are:

Declan McCullagh, who's been reporting on this issue for CNET News. Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless. Ted's company is in the very business of determining location data on mobile devices, and his technology has been used by many manufacturers.

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Some of our discussion points… Read more

Google sued over Android data location collection

Two Michigan women are suing Google over location data collected by Android devices, a week after Apple was named in a lawsuit citing privacy violations with the iPhone logging similar data.

The $50 million lawsuit against Google seeks to stop Google from selling phones with software that can track a user's location, the Detroit News reported today.

The lawsuit was filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Detroit on behalf of plaintiffs Julie Brown and Kayla Molaski, who are seeking class action status for the suit. Their lawyer, Steven Budaj, argues in the complaint that the tracking of … Read more

Police use sat-nav data to place speed cameras

Those worried about what location information their phones are gathering might want to scrutinize their car navigation systems first.

Police in the Netherlands have used aggregate data from TomTom's satellite navigation systems to install speed cameras where drivers tend to exceed the speed limit, TomTom said yesterday. The practice doesn't involve any individual data, but TomTom is barring it in the future after customers objected.

The company's sat-nav systems can send position data back to TomTom, and the company uses the information for purposes such as routing people around traffic jams and providing accurate estimates of journey … Read more