Apparently, some smart phones are too clever for their own good. According to recent reports both iPhones and Android devices are tracking our every move. It appears these companies have embedded some very sophisticated tracking technology in their popular mobile devices. The only problem is, they never bothered to tell us about it. Which is kind of a giant invasion into our privacy rights. Hello!
Worse than that, it makes us more vulnerable to hackers. You see, the data is collected whenever the device connects with cell-phone towers or Wi-Fi networks. When the mobile device is later synced to a computer all that info is exposed to the mad skills of some devious hacker.
Ouch!
Speculation varies as to why the manufacturers would program these smart devices to automatically log the users’ physical coordinates. One theory is that advertisers and their ad agencies could benefit from knowing what locations users frequent most, in order to target marketing messages their way. The only problem is, Apple and Android failed to mention this marketing breakthrough to the very advertisers and ad agencies that could utilize this data. Hello!
This unsettling revelation comes at a time when the countries best legal minds are debating the upsides and downsides of mobile devices and privacy, says Catherine Crump, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City. “This is not just about Apple,” she says, “it’s about the broader question about how electronic devices have become integrated in our daily lives. That’s fantastic, but at the same time, it’s a new reality for the rest of us who didn’t grow up with them and are struggling to understand what the privacy trade-offs are in using them.”
If this story has a moral, maybe it’s this: the next time you brilliant guys come up with this sort of ingenious technology, just tell us about it. Call it an upgrade. Heck, we would probably even pay more money to possess it. We’re funny that way.
