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Google Map App's Version of Anonymity Might Violate EU Privacy Laws
Ars Technica reports that Google's map application for iOS, however popular it might be with users, raises red flags with European regulators, who maintain that it by default does not sufficiently safeguard user privacy as required by EU privacy rules. Ars quotes Marit Hansen of Germany's Independent Centre for Privacy Protection on why: "Hansen's main gripe is that Google's use of 'anonymous' is misleading. 'All available information points to having linkable identifiers per user," she told Computerworld. Hansen added this would allow Google to track several location entries, thus leading to her assumption that Google's 'anonymous location data' would be considered 'personal data' under the European law."
if you ask google for directions for a to b then they need to know what a and b are.
True, but they don't need to know who is asking nor that the same person five minutes earlier searched for adult stores.
Or if you are irritated by a countries laws, don't do business there.
Perhaps you don't care, but I do.
Have anybody ever asked you for directions? Please tell me the exact time and date, where he or she was before and when after. This can even be a person close to you.
You can't? Google can and that is why you should not compare individual situations with the ones that are done by companies who use a database.
The fact that you do not care about your privacy does not stop me fighting for it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
On Android, I can turn off all the "location" services anytime I'm not using GPS. Saves the battery from being eaten by GPS. Does iPhone give this option?
Yeah. You disable location services altogether. And individual apps cannot access your location unless you allow them to -- an alert shows up the first time they try. If you refuse, it's up to the app to figure out what to do without your location; no API will let it find the information.
Admittedly, if you ask Google Maps directions from A to B, Google came make a rather safe assumption that you're heading to B from A, even if you disallow it to access your precise location.
They call themselves Independent Centre for Privacy Protection, so they hardly have an unbiased opinion here.
*sigh* Does anyone even read the fucking summary any more?
The problem is that when you ask to "anonymous", your data is not actually anonymized. They can send directions for getting from A to B and then discard all personally identifying information, which is what a normal person would expect if they selected "anonymous".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
On Android, I can turn off all the "location" services anytime I'm not using GPS. Saves the battery from being eaten by GPS. Does iPhone give this option?
iPhone doesn't work quite like that. The GPS radio is never left on all the time.
There is an option to never allow it to come on of course, but even with that switched on, the GPS only gets activated when an app needs to use it and you allowed that app to.
It also shows a GPS icon in the title bar whenever an app is actively using it.
When an app first runs, the OS asks you if you want to allow location services for this app. If you click no the API won't return that data.
If you click yes, it adds it to the list of allowed GPS apps.
You can pull this list up under Settings at any time to remove an app after you have already allowed it.
Basically battery life only takes a hit when you see that icon, and that icon only shows up while in an app you allowed to use it. Once you flip back to springboard (aka the launcher) or into another app, it gets shut off again.
They may well be willing to live with bad maps in exchange for higher privacy.
I fail to see how privacy has anything to do with providing good maps or directions? Isn't it just Graph Theory? Whether it is you or me that is asking for directions from point A to point B, the fact that you know stuff about me or not, does change the results... (or at least, it shouldn't)
Whatever happened to objectivity? Explain to me a scenario in which you get a different route from A to B than I the one get? Why would this ever be a good thing?
It appears to me that you have bought into the fact that in order to do anything 'good' or 'well done', it needs tracking of who is requesting the service. I have yet to see any type of evidence for this opinion.
That's incredible battery life. No, this is an older Samsung, I've had it for awhile now. I've never gotten near that kind of battery life - I should get something newer. On this phone, calls are not much of a drain, but leaving GPS on at all is a huge drain. There's no icon on the notification bar, but that may be a difference between your newer HTC and my older Samsung.
The issue is Google collecting data on where you've been. That's not to serve you. It's to serve the interests of Google.
It's one of the reasons Apple wouldn't accept Google's conditions for adding turn-by-turn navigation to the old Google Maps app.
which is what a normal person would expect if they selected "anonymous".
On Slashdot there are two models of anonymity.
1) AmiMoJo is a pseudonym. We don't know your real name, but we can tie together your posts to learn a fair amount about you.
2) Anonymous Coward. Every post is separate. You never know which ACs are the same person.
For Google maps, people would expect type 2. What they get is type 1.
SImple. You don't have a persistent ID associated with all requests from the app. The problem is not that a location is sent to the server as part of a request. It's that it's associated with a persistent ID and stored by Google.
I have to say I was surprised at how insistent the new iOS application is at trying to determine your location. Every time you go into it it asks for location services to be turned on. You can skip by it, but that would be the type of setting that with other programs would be a choice only made once, not pestering every time.
It is very clear that google are obsessed about knowing locations to enable them to tie and link you to services and advertising. AFAICT though the circle can only be completed if you are logged into google services on iOS â" then they can tie the ID to an account â" otherwise they will have to fall back to IP addresses which I am guessing they wouldn't do too routinely as it is not going to be all that reliable (shared addresses etc.).
"I want turn by turn directions, and for you to redirect me when I make a wrong turn, but I don't want you to know where I'm located or where I'm headed".
None of that follows from what I said.
Meh - seems like a ridiculous standard to hold any GPS provider to - "I want turn by turn directions, and for you to redirect me when I make a wrong turn, but I don't want you to know where I'm located or where I'm headed". I guess it could be implemented, but if that's the European standard, it seems a bit silly to me. Whatever.
It's not "I don't want you to know where I'm located". It's "I don't want you to store that the location I give you is mine. I also don't want you to store that the location I gave you today was given to you by the same person that gave you a different location yesterday, so that you can't correlate different locations".
Meh - seems like a ridiculous standard to hold any GPS provider to - "I want turn by turn directions, and for you to redirect me when I make a wrong turn, but I don't want you to know where I'm located or where I'm headed".
Does it seem so odd to not want a GPS provider to know that you specifically go there every year on November 14th at 9am?
Or to have a profile that can predict exactly when you will be at work any day of the year after sampling your movements for a decade?
All of that is easy to do with what Google collects by default.
And before you and others start, Apple does not have that data on you because it does not store details of your request permanently.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley