Your phone is tracking you
Apps on your smartphone are collecting data on your location and may be selling it to companies. The New York Times revealed how one company kept a database that tracked people’s travels, with their location being updated hundreds of times a day.
That data was then sold by the app to advertisers and retail companies that use it to analyse consumer behaviour.
While everyone knows apps track your location, the story revealed how detailed that data is and how, while it’s supposed to be anonymous, it’s easy to identify people from that data.
The companies are not targeting specific individuals but the detailed nature of data creates a risk that it may be misused.
Dozens of apps use your location to create a better experience. Some of the most common ones are those for maps, cameras and fitness tracking, but you’ll find that nearly all the apps on your phone want to access your location.
You have complete control over what apps use your location but if you refuse permission you lose a lot of functionality.
You can simply turn off location services and the problem is solved, but an app such as Google Maps becomes all but useless.
The best thing to do is go through all apps and decide which ones can use your location.
The problem is that if you do allow it, you have little understanding and no power over what happens to your location data.
While most apps will inform you via their terms and conditions, it’s buried in a subsection somewhere using confusing language.
Also, it’s individual apps that are doing this, not Apple or Google, which make the operating systems and run the app stores.
However, those two companies could do a better job, forcing app creators to clearly state what they do with location data.
There is no list of ‘‘naughty apps’’, you need to look at which ones you use and choose what apps can use your location.
On an iPhone, go to Settings, Privacy and then Location Services. You can then see what apps use your location and choose to either never allow them access, always allow or only track you while using the app.
On an Android device, go to Settings, Security and Location, Location and then App-level Permissions. You can only turn tracking on and off and apps will transmit your location even if not opened. The District of Columbia in the US has fired the latest legal salvo against Facebook with a lawsuit seeking to punish the social networking company for allowing data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly access data from as many as 87 million users.
The complaint filed on Thursday (NZ time) by Washington, DC, Attorney General Karl Racine alleges that Facebook misled users about the security of their data and failed for years to properly monitor third-party apps.
‘‘We’re seeking to hold Facebook accountable for jeopardising and exposing the personal information of tens of millions of its users,’’ Racine said. ‘‘We hope this lawsuit will ensure Facebook takes better care with its data.’’
Facebook said it is reviewing the complaint and will continue to hold discussions with Racine and attorneys-general scattered across the United States who have raised red flags about the company’s mishandling of personal information.
The lawsuit is the latest blow to Facebook in a year fraught with privacy scandals and other problems for the world’s biggest social network.
Facebook already has been buried in an avalanche of other lawsuits filed in federal and state courts, as well as regulatory investigations in both US and Europe into whether the company has violated laws by repeatedly allowing unauthorised access to the personal information of the nearly 2.3 billion people on its private network.
The Washington lawsuit alleges that about half of the District of Columbia’s roughly 700,000 residents had their data scooped up by Cambridge Analytica in violation of local laws.
That is a relatively small number, but the case could attract outsized attention, given it will unfold in the nation’s capital, where US lawmakers are mulling imposing new regulations restricting how much personal information Facebook and other internet companies can collect on their mostly free services.
‘‘Every time we see another lawsuit, or investigation, it helps keep attention on what has been happening and should help create a framework for holding Facebook accountable,’’ said Mike Chapple, an associate teaching professor of information technology, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame. ‘‘People are getting fed up with having their information mishandled.’’
It remains unclear, however, whether the allegations that are being made against Facebook in the District of Columbia and in other complaints were against the law at the time, said Dora Kingsley Vertenten, professor of public policy at the University of Southern California.
‘‘It looks like they are throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks,’’ she said.
– AP