Smartphones: The Tracking and Surveillance of Millions of Americans

Global Research, May 2, 2011

As Smartphone Scandal Grows, Tech Firms Run for Cover, Reap Windfall Profits

Recent revelations that Apple's iPhone and iPad, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating systems collect, store and transmit records of users' physical locations to central databases--secretly, and without consent--have ignited a firestorm over Americans' privacy rights in an age of hypersurveillance.

And with a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Florida by two iPhone users, The Register reports, Apple guru Steve Jobs was forced to respond to complaints after the firm's usual tactic--deafening silence--failed to assuage customer's anxieties.

The lawsuit alleges that "irreparable injury has resulted and continues to result from Apple's unauthorized tracking of millions of Americans," plaintiffs Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito averred. They are requesting their case be granted class-action status, a move likely to send shudders along the silicon spine of the secretive Cupertino high-tech powerhouse...[Full Article]

Apple, Google Collect User Data

Wall Street Journal

Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.

Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour. It also transmitted the name, location and signal strength of any nearby Wi-Fi networks, as well as a unique phone identifier.

Google declined to comment on the findings...[Full Article]

iPhone and iPad Tracking Your Locations Everywhere You Go

I’ll be watching you…

irishtimes.com - Posted: April 21, 2011 @ 9:03 am

Ciara O'Brien

In case you missed it, the iPhone (and iPad) apparently tracks its location and saves it to the phone, complete with handy little time stamps. So everywhere you go, it takes a record of it. A stalker’s dream, wouldn’t you say?

I don’t think anyone is too surprised that they can be tracked by a phone that contains location services. And if you have anything like Find My iPhone on your handset, you can pinpoint your phone’s location in real time.

But it’s the level of data retention that has raised some eyebrows, plus the danger posed by potential access to the file. And even if you switch off your location services, the phone will still keep track of you, because it uses data triangulated from mobile towers rather than the built-in GPS.

Apparently no other smartphone keeps the same creepy log of all your movements, so congratulations, Apple, you’ve scored another first. Though I doubt it’s one that will be making it into STeve’s next keynote, somehow.

If you’re interested to find out just what’s stored on your iPhone, have a look at the application here.

Apple iPhone secretly tracking user's privacy: Security researcher

The Times of India

WASHINGTON: Apple has been accused of putting customers' privacy at risk after security researchers found that their iPhones were tracking users' locations and saving every details to a secret file.

The researchers found the device saves the latitude and longitude of users' locations, along with a time stamp, then copies the data to the owner's computer whenever the two are synchronised.

This means anyone who stole the phone or gained access to the computer it is paired with could build a detailed picture of the owner's movements.

"Apple has made it possible for almost anybody - a jealous spouse, a private detective - with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you've been," the Daily Mail quoted Pete Warden , one of the researchers who discovered the file, as saying.

It has also emerged that Apple's iPad device also records location data...[Full Article]

Foxconn Suicides: iPhone And iPad Factory Under Scrutiny

The massive Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen is known for assembling famous electronic goods like Apple's iPhone and iPad. But in recent months it has gained a darker image, as a place where distraught workers regularly throw themselves to their deaths. The latest fatality came on Tuesday morning, when a 19-year-old employee died in a fall in the company's Shenzhen compound, according to the state-run Xinhua news service. He was the ninth worker this year to have died in a fall from factory buildings on Foxconn's properties in Shenzhen; two have survived suicide attempts, according to state-media reports. Another teenager, who the company revealed this month died after jumping from a company building in Hebei province in January, brings the total employee death toll from falls to 10 this year.

The string of deaths has drawn attention to the labor practices of a highly successful Fortune 500 company that has 420,000 workers on its payroll in Shenzhen alone. Two dozen activists protested outside the company's Hong Kong offices on Tuesday, calling on Foxconn to improve working conditions and raise wages. The Taiwan-owned company, which is an arm of the Hon Hai Group, has defended the treatment of its workers. "A lot of things cannot be said at this point, but we are quietly doing our job," CEO Terry Gou told a business forum on Monday. With over 900,000 employees globally in the Hon Hai Group, Gou acknowledged the difficulties of employee management. "But," he said, "we are confident we will get things under control shortly." (See portraits of Chinese workers.)

Working conditions at Foxconn's factories have been under scrutiny for years. The attention was heightened in 2009 when 25-year-old employee Sun Danyong, who had been accused by management of losing an iPhone prototype, jumped to his death from his apartment in Shenzhen. Chinese press reports said Sun, who grew up in a poor village in Yunnan province and attended the top-rated Harbin Institute of Technology, might have been physically abused by company security guards searching for the missing device...

[Full Article]