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Location Services Raise Privacy Concerns

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-all-sounds-familiar dept.

megahurt writes "Location-based services are becoming more common, and the features they add to mobile devices can be useful and even fun. But the downside is that everyone who reads the posting will know the user isn't home. On top of that, some services, such as Foursquare, can be linked to Twitter feeds. Peter Eckersley, senior staff technologist, says there are many situations in which the location data that is kept could be misused. Many of the providers of services say in their privacy policies they will give up the data in cases where it is subpoenaed. That isn't always from law enforcement; sometimes the data can be used in civil lawsuits such as divorce cases."

12 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    If you're cheating on your wife, don't post that fact on the Internet.

    Any other pro tips for me today, Slashdot?

  2. You don't have to use these services by Pete+Venkman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People don't have to use these services.

    1. Re:You don't have to use these services by phooka.de · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People are stupid (or rather they are uninformed).

      That's what the law is there for (amongst other things): to protect the uninformed masses and the stupid so you don't have to be an expert in every field you encounter in your daily life.

    2. Re:You don't have to use these services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think there should just be a law against being stupid instead.

    3. Re:You don't have to use these services by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Civil law deals with fraud, malice and bad faith. I'm not so sure that it's there to give any reasonable, educated person of average intellect (which is what the law calls the "uninformed masses") with an Undo button for their voluntary actions. That's certainly not how it works in criminal statues.

      Oh, I thought I could just sell this iPhone I "found". Undo. Wait, getting into a consensual bar fight means we're both guilty of affray? Undo. The speed limit here is 30, officer? Undo.

      If ignorance of the law is not an excuse, general purpose ignorance probably isn't either.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  3. So... by Spad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember to turn off the location services of your phone before you:

    • Break the law
    • Cheat on your partner
    • Skip school/work
    • Do anything else where you wouldn't want people to know your location

    If only there were some kind of sense, possibly a common one, that would help avoid these nasty problems.

    1. Re:So... by decipher_saint · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or like, leave your phone at home...

      --
      crazy dynamite monkey
    2. Re:So... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If only there were some kind of sense, possibly a common one, that would help avoid these nasty problems.

      You know, new technology creates new situations which previously hadn't needed to be considered.

      We're talking a very small number of years that the exact location you were standing when you did something is a matter of electronic record.

      Common sense being neither, and the total number of years in which people have had to contend with such issues is relatively low. While you can sound all smug and say "everyone should know that", the reality is that most people with a smart phone barely know what all it does, let alone the legal ramifications of carrying one around. And, the number of people who have had their location subpoenaed for a tweet they made as part of their divorce case? Probably a very small number.

      Why is the Slashdot crowd so myopic about technology that they think all of these issues have been around for decades, or that everyone who happens to use what is now a fairly ubiquitous technology is fully dialed into all of the aspects of that technology?

      Some of these are actually quite new social and legal considerations. Acting like you've known this forever makes you sound like a smug idiot.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:So... by PatHMV · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not to go all insensitive clod on you, but.... When I was a kid, a member of my immediate family passed away. The newspaper printed the obituary and noted (against my dad's instructions) that the funeral would be in another town, in a distant part of the state. When we returned home several days later, we found that burglars had broken into the house while we were gone. Eventually it was confirmed that the burglars had read the obituaries, saw we would be out of town, and used that information to decide to rob us. So, there are very GOOD reasons for people who are doing nothing wrong to also not want the world at large to know their location.

    4. Re:So... by Jimmy+King · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is the Slashdot crowd so myopic about technology that they think all of these issues have been around for decades, or that everyone who happens to use what is now a fairly ubiquitous technology is fully dialed into all of the aspects of that technology?

      Some of these are actually quite new social and legal considerations. Acting like you've known this forever makes you sound like a smug idiot.

      It should be common sense that if something is tracking where you are at all times, then people will know where you are/were. You're right in that people commonly don't know how their expensive gadgets work and what they are capable of at even the most basic level, but just because something happens to be the common case doesn't mean that it "should" be the common case and accepted.

      If you want to own and play with complex things then you need to understand complex things or it's more likely to come back and bite you in the ass. You don't necessarily need to understand it at more than a basic level, but you do need some level of understanding. Just like I don't understand toasters (a comparative simple bit of tech) well enough to build one but I understand them well enough to know not stick my finger in it when it's on or recently has been on. As those things get more complex, what you'll need to know and understand also tends to get more complex. This applies to many things in life, but is unfortunately ignored when it comes to computer related tech.

    5. Re:So... by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And this is all exactly what I view as being the problem. We keep giving people this cool new stuff with more and more ways to hurt themselves. Unfortunately, what should be common sense is not, and so people get caught by surprise.

      Well, it does go beyond that, though.

      Think of how many stories we see about Facebook changing their settings so everyone is suddenly sharing everything and needs to explicitly opt out. Or, AT&T inadvertently leaking the email address of anyone with an iPad.

      Sometimes, even the people driving the technology haven't considered all of the issues. So, expecting your average smart phone user to be well versed in all of the privacy stuff might be a little difficult. And, it can all change so fast, it's hard to keep up. (Who among us remembers it being an urban myth that you could get a virus from an email even if you never opened it? After telling relatives that was false, suddenly it became true one day.)

      When done on a personal level, you run the risk of sounding like a pompous ass and then getting ignored. Coming from corporations or the like, it quite easily starts to sound like fear mongering and again gets ignored.

      That's exactly my point -- John Q. Public is going to listen to alarmist stuff as the stuff of crackpots and fear mongering, and the completely tune out. They don't want to hear it, and they don't like being told that they're sheep who need to know more than they do -- it's considered rude. ;-)

      Striking the balance between educating people and having companies make 'smart' choices with the end-user's welfare in mind is tough. Companies want to maximize their profits, so Facebook isn't well served by saying "well, our privacy settings are by default weak" you should change them, since they want to sell that stuff. They need your information to be as public as possible. Someone can trot out a new thing, and all of a sudden, you have something new to worry about.

      I don't think there's an "easy" solution to this. It's a complex problem, and needs to be addressed from multiple angles. At present, the technology is more prevalent than a widespread understanding of the issues. I actually see this continuing to get worse as even more technology gets trotted out to consumers.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. You missed a few by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember to turn off your phone before you:

    1. Leave your valuables unattended
    2. Do anything politically-related, such as attend a rally
    3. Buy things with so-called "anonymous" cash
    4. Make a phone call