You're Not Invisible Anymore
In a follow up to my previous post, I'd like to delve further into the privacy we are giving up when we carry around our cell phones. We stand in line to buy the latest and greatest technology when it comes to cell phones, but do we really realize what we are consenting to when we activate them?
My iPhone 4s comes with a cool GPS feature, much like all of the newer model smart phones do. I can get in my truck, plug an address into my phone and off I go with my iPhone leading the way. This is such a handy tool. No more wrong turns or getting lost in a section of town I've never been to before. Along with this convenience, however, is the reality that I may not be the only one using the GPS tracking on my phone.
Many of the apps we utilize every day, the very apps that we have willingly downloaded onto our smartphones, use this GPS data to track a variety of things. I have a maps app, a tellnav app, a cinemark app, a tom thumb app, an around me app and a gas buddy app, just to name a few. All of these apps use my phones GPS data to locate the nearest "whatever" close to me and guide me to that place.
Research scientists from MIT (and elsewhere) have published an article in the journal of Scientific Reports how easy it is for this information to be used to track our everyday lives. They go on to say: "Mobility data is among the most sensitive data currently being collected. Mobility data contains the approximate whereabouts of individuals and can be used to reconstruct individuals' movements across space and time."
I can see you shaking your head now, saying that all of this data is not accessible by the every day Joe Blow on the streets and that you have nothing to be worried about. Think again. Think about all of the apps that you download to your phone that you don't really know where they are coming from. (probably 90% of the apps people download) Just consider if someone created a really cool game app that just caught fire on the net that you just had to have. You download it and now you're playing this really cool game all the time. Did you ever think that this app may have, behind the scenes, hooked into your GPS on your phone and started transmitting your location to some unseen server in the cloud somewhere? Think about it, you could be telling everybody and their brother who has the money to access this data where you are at all times.
We all tell our kids about the dangers of giving up too much information on line because we fear for their safety. What about our safety. Are we giving up too much?
Just something to think about.
My iPhone 4s comes with a cool GPS feature, much like all of the newer model smart phones do. I can get in my truck, plug an address into my phone and off I go with my iPhone leading the way. This is such a handy tool. No more wrong turns or getting lost in a section of town I've never been to before. Along with this convenience, however, is the reality that I may not be the only one using the GPS tracking on my phone.
Many of the apps we utilize every day, the very apps that we have willingly downloaded onto our smartphones, use this GPS data to track a variety of things. I have a maps app, a tellnav app, a cinemark app, a tom thumb app, an around me app and a gas buddy app, just to name a few. All of these apps use my phones GPS data to locate the nearest "whatever" close to me and guide me to that place.
Research scientists from MIT (and elsewhere) have published an article in the journal of Scientific Reports how easy it is for this information to be used to track our everyday lives. They go on to say: "Mobility data is among the most sensitive data currently being collected. Mobility data contains the approximate whereabouts of individuals and can be used to reconstruct individuals' movements across space and time."
I can see you shaking your head now, saying that all of this data is not accessible by the every day Joe Blow on the streets and that you have nothing to be worried about. Think again. Think about all of the apps that you download to your phone that you don't really know where they are coming from. (probably 90% of the apps people download) Just consider if someone created a really cool game app that just caught fire on the net that you just had to have. You download it and now you're playing this really cool game all the time. Did you ever think that this app may have, behind the scenes, hooked into your GPS on your phone and started transmitting your location to some unseen server in the cloud somewhere? Think about it, you could be telling everybody and their brother who has the money to access this data where you are at all times.
We all tell our kids about the dangers of giving up too much information on line because we fear for their safety. What about our safety. Are we giving up too much?
Just something to think about.
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