Smartphones strip away yet another level of privacy

It turns out that smartphones aren't spying on their owners after all. Or at least not to the degree it seemed a few days ago.

A firestorm erupted last week when two researchers said they had discovered that many of Apple's iPhones and iPads were surreptitiously recording users' whereabouts and saving the locations in hidden files. They used the files to create maps of where they had been over several months.

OTHER VIEWS: 'Users are confused'
That was creepy enough for some iPhone users, but then came news that Google was doing something similar with phones that use its Android system, and that both Apple and Google were routinely collecting and saving users' location data. By then, the Illinois attorney general and members of the House and Senate had
demanded information, and millions of phone users were wondering whether Big Brother really was watching after all.

The companies didn't help much at first. Google issued aterse statement saying that all its data were maintained anonymously, while Apple stayed dead silent for a week, provoking deepening suspicions from bloggers and users alike.
When Apple finally spoke up, it echoed Google's assertions about anonymity. The company also said it isn't tracking users' exact locations, but making a database of cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots that they've used, which can then help a phone figure out where it is when GPS signals are sketchy or unavailable, such as in a basement. Apple blamed itself in part for the confusion, saying it hadn't done enough to educate consumers.
Apple and Google might in fact be well-intentioned here, but the episode is a reminder that anyone who uses a cutting-edge device these days really has very little idea what it's doing, how much information it's sharing with whom and why.
Consumers opt in to services and sign or click on "terms of service" agreements, but most of those disclosures seem designed never to be read. Google's agreementfor users of its Chrome browser, for example, is 6,553 words of sometimes mind-numbing legalese. Apple's privacy policy is far clearer, but still a ponderous 2,417 words.
Some people are fine with sharing virtually everything about themselves. Many others are not. But everyone in every instance should have a choice, in plain, concise, understandable English. Banks were recently forced to do something similar with financial documents, but only after their deceptive practices contributed to the housing collapse.
As for the companies' databases, they are not entirely benign. There's no shortage of people who would feel uncomfortable with the idea that a company — and by extension the government — might have a detailed record of their movements for the past year. Once exposed, Apple saw the error of its ways and reduced the storage time to seven days. Google had always retained a much more modest database on Android phones.
Good. But the incident is yet another red flag signaling that the Internet is eroding privacy at troubling speed with too little attention.


Smartphones strip away yet another level of privacy