The good, the bad, and the ugly of location services
By Laura Haight
President, Portfolio
If you’ve got an iPhone, you’ve probably noticed popups advising you of how apps have been using your location and offering preference changes.
That’s a big change that has come about largely because of the brouhaha over tech providers and social media companies selling your data to businesses and the government.
Privacy is caught in a tangle of contradictions. We are caught in the middle with the difference between a feature and a detriment is what you choose and what is chosen for you.
New information continues to blur these lines. Last week, it was reported that location data is being sold by private firms to other industries. More disturbing is the fact that these third parties are reselling the data to others. An investigation by Vice disturbingly showed how easy it is to get location data for just about anyone – so long as you have their phone number and a couple of hundred bucks.
This is just the latest of revelations on how you are being tracked every day. While there are scores of apps that use location data, there are some actively engaged in selling it. Weather Bug, Gas Buddy, The Weather Channel among them.
And that’s just apps on your phone. What about your car?
Bill Hanvey, president of the Auto Care Association, wrote in May about the surprising amount of data your computer-controlled car collects. For example, your weight, how fast you drive, where you go, and - if you connect a phone to you car via Bluetooth – your texts. About 25 gigbytes of data every hour are collected and transmitted to the manufacturer. Since it’s not illegal for companies to sell this data, one has to wonder: What’s next? Would your insurance company like to know how you drive? How about your health insurance provider learning how much weight you are gaining?
Is this legal?
The fact that it’s not illegal for apps to sell the data has spurred a call among privacy activists for legislation similar to Europe’s GDPR. In fact, earlier this year it looked like our tortured politics might find common ground on this topic. California passed a digital privacy law this summer, which may have provided the extra push Congress needed to try and avoid a flurry of contradictory state laws trying to regulate digital services that know no geographic boundary. But hope is fading that the two sides can overcome differences and political logjams to get something done before the 2020 election.
Three steps you can take
Inventory the apps on your phone. Delete those you don’t use. Apple has a function that removes unused apps from your phone but let’s you instantly redownload them if you want them back.
Make sure location sharing is necessary for the app you’re using.
For those you keep, give the lowest permission possible when it comes to tracking and sharing. You don’t need a weather app to know where you are every minute, only when you are using it.
