Who can protect our privacy in technologies?

Earlier this year in April, it was reported that iPhones track where people go by generating a file that contains detailed timestamps and location information on the phones.  Once the phones are synced with other devices like computers, a copy of the file will be automatically generated on them.  The iPhone stores location data of most users since they owned their phone, and also transfers the data to new phones when the user upgrades by syncing the information. Security researchers have created a tool that uses the data and creates a map of everywhere the phone has been.  An example map is shown below.  The majority of users do not have control over the accessibility of their data and how the data is going to be used. In this case, it really raises the concern of users on the issues of privacy and exposure of their personal life.  We are not sure whether this case stays in a gray zone of laws at this point.

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Is the data collection anonymous?

People may be less concerned about Apple’s action on tracking people’s location data when they think it’s anonymous. As in Ryan Shaw’s Recognition Markets and Visual Privacy, people would not mind being seen as long as they are not recognized. In the reading, ESP Game make two players to collaborate on photo tagging so that the objects on the photos can be recognized, including people. The probability of a photo of you being recognized is very low in general because that means the players need to know who you are and have the ability of recognizing you. However, what if the system sent your photo to your friends or people who know you? Same as here, what if your phone or computer is stolen by people who know you and have bad intentions? Is your data anonymous anymore? iPhone users’ privacy and personal securities are put under threat.

Do users have a choice?

Users of iPhones may become uncertain about their situation. The fact of knowing them being track by their lovely phones 24/7 is cruel. Users may ask “Do we have a choice to turn it off or maybe the data is generated on the phone by accident?” The answer is unfortunately a “No.” A notice to users or any control option to users does not exist. And researchers found the data tracking is not accidental because they are transferable between iPhones, iPads, and computers. The phones record the data whether the users agree or not.  The fact that Apple did this without informing their customers is a huge breach in customer privacy.

Data Retention: Individual Rights vs. Public Interests

iPhones retain the data and generate a copy on other devices that are synchronized with the phones. The question here is how long the date are retained and how it is going to be used. Blanchette and Johnson’s reading addresses the issue of data retention and the tension between individual interests to privacy and public interests. Individual interests do not outweigh public goods in general, but if public interests reflect the social values of American society that everyone want to maintain, there should be no tension or conflict between the two.

In the iPhone case, however, what would be the public interests to have the huge among of location and timestamps data visible? As Cluley at the security company Sophos said if the data isnot required for anything, they should not be stored or retained. So the real and critical question here is does that do any public good without invading personal privacy?