Apple's Privacy Policies Are Keeping Data Scientists Away

An anonymous reader writes: The Cupertino-based global device giant is falling behind in the race to create 'predictive' services for smartphones because its privacy policies are too protective of the end-user. Data retention policies on user-centric information gathered into its Siri 'personal assistant' product is a reasonably generous six months, whilst information retained from the user's exploration of Apple Maps expires after only 15 minutes. As a consequence Apple's smartphones attempt to crunch a great deal of user-data locally rather than in the cloud.

Comments

Re:I don't understand something

[rmdingler]

The story makes me want to run out, and buy an Iphone

By design, as it were.

/. ; slow to pick on/up the ripe apples.

Re:I don't understand something

[swillden]

There is basically 3 levels. Do nothing. Which is fairly wide grained. Basically city level. Opt in which is about every 15-30 mins it signals in (more if you use something like google maps). Opt out. Where like you said you can go in and delete it. But you have to specifically turn it off. You have to go out of your way to make all the other apps not do it as well. The default is basically grab it when you open up something.

No, what you say is incorrect in several ways. Just to verify I grabbed a device and factory-reset it, then walked through the process. During setup, here's what I'm asked (with respect to location):

Let Google's location services help apps find your location quickly and accurately, which can reduce battery consumption. Anonymous location data will be sent to Google, even when no apps are running.

Improve location accuracy by allowing apps and services to scan for Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices, even when Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are off.

I don't know whether you want to call that "opt in" or "opt out"... it's a forced decision.

Later in the setup process comes the Google Now prompt. If you sign up for Google now, it will turn on a lot of history, including, search and browsing activity, calendars, apps, music, battery life, sensor readings, location history and voice searches and commands. Again, it's a forced decision.

Having refused all of that, now if I go look at my location settings I see that I'm in mode "device only". If I tap on that, there are three levels: "High accuracy", which uses GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular networks, "Battery saving" which uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular only (no GPS), and "Device only", which uses only GPS. So you're right that there are three levels, but wrong about what they are. "Device only" isn't city-level, it's GPS-precise... but because GPS is a battery killer it's only on when apps specifically request it. "Battery saving" is the mode you called the lowest, which is coarse-grained but energy-efficient because it doesn't use GPS. "High accuracy" uses all of the efficient signals, plus kicks on the GPS when you need it.

None of that has anything to do with location history though. It's defines the precision of location data available to apps. It may also be sent to Google, but anonymized and not stored with your account.

Also in the location settings is "Google Location History". That is what controls whether location information is uploaded to Google, associated with your account and stored. It's completely separate from the location accuracy settings; you can turn it on while accuracy is set to "Device only" and it will upload your position whenever it actually knows it. That will be when you're using Maps or similar. Or you can turn it on with accuracy set to "Battery saving" and it will upload your location regularly, but not very precisely. Or you can use it with "High accuracy" and give Google highly-accurate history (which you can then use whenever you want, too).