Your Phone Tracks Your Location: Examples of How This Can Get You into Trouble
The importance of privacy and how modern technology violates it
Many apps on your phone are capable of using information from your phone’s GPS feature to track where you go every minute of every day. Some evidence suggests that app makers sell this information to anyone willing to pay for it, including governments, law enforcement organizations, and journalists. This is information that can get you into trouble.
The Health and Location Data Protection Act under consideration in the U.S. Congress is already trying to make it illegal for data brokerage firms to collect personal health and location data from apps on consumer phones to sell to the highest bidder. It could be hard to actually rein brokerages in, however, because they’re a powerful industry worth $12 billion annually.
Isn’t marketing data anonymous?
Plenty of apps that you install — e.g., for coupons, dating, weather, health — ask you to allow them to access location information from your phone’s GPS module. They often don’t need this information and can work very well without it. They still ask for it because it can be a source of revenue for them. Since users often can’t use these apps unless they grant…
