Apple Patent Reveals Extensive Stalking Plans

[meegbear]

The spying iPhone is no accident. A recent Apple patent application reveals that the location-tracking dossiers accumulated in iPhones are to be used in apps from Apple and any number of other companies.

Ronald Huang, an Apple senior engineering manager, filed patent application 12/553,554 last month, "Location histories for location aware devices," which explains how Apple can amass and use location data in the very ways Apple critics fear. The patent application, for example, envisions a searchable map plotting the owner's location history; tying location to financial transactions; transmitting location data over the internet to remote servers; and many other uses.

Apple has been enmeshed in controversy since computer researchers disclosed last month that the iPhone stores indefinitely data about its whereabouts gleaned from cell phone towers and wifi access points. The data collection started with the release of iOS 4 last June. The iPhone puts the location data in an easily read file called "consolidated.db," which is apparently never pruned for old entries.

Privacy advocates, politicians and the press have loudly raised concerns about how this extensive history of personal movements is going to be used. Senator Al Franken and Rep. Ed Markey, for example, both wrote letters to Apple demanding to know why the location dossiers are being created, and today the Illinois attorney general followed suit. The information is also collected even if the iPhone's "location services" preference is set to "off," the Wall Street Journal reported this morning.

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http://gawker.com/#!5795442/apple-patent-reveals-extensive-stalking-plans

Click the link above to see the PDF document.

Slow news day.

[LiberalEsto]

1. Guess I'll never buy an Apple product

even if I could afford one.

[tridim]

2. Apple may not be Big Brother yet, but they certainly want to be.

Irony abounds.

[JHB]

3. No need for them to be BB...

...all they need is to be in a position to sell information to BB (or thousands of would-be little BB's). Or people who are just after someone.


Are you a billionaire trying to influence politics? Have one of your front organizations purchase data on who attended opposition rallies or meetings. Use private investigators to check into them, and find ways to make life difficult for the organizers.

Got a restraining order on someone? Now your stalker or violent ex can keep a close eye on you at a safer distance, as long as they can afford the data fee.

Maybe on privacy "that ship has sailed", but there are plenty of things where just because we can't put the genie back in a bottle doesn't mean we don't have ways to rein it in and make it less dangerous or to limit damage when it goes wrong. Has "that ship sailed" for fire control and safety?

[HillbillyBob]

4. Well this house hold will never have Apple any damn thing.

Im sick of the corpses stealing our rights when are we going to do something about it? I am disabled and really can't get out to rally/protest..but I can bitch as many here can attest..and I can boycott.
The only way we are going to break corporate power is to not buy their bullshit products. I don't ha an Ipod or any of that stuff. I do have an htc verizon touch screen(not my choice) my partner got as a premium gift, I have severe health stuff going on so I have to have a phone, but don't text or live on the damn thing.