Late last week, Twitter began to light up with claims that Uber had changed its terms of service to give the company the right to to modify and sell users’ data — not a minor concern for any privacy-minded consumer. However, Uber points out that the specific clause at the center of this mini-controversy is not new, not unique to the ride-hailing service, and doesn’t give the company that god-like authority some people are claiming. [More]
we know where you’ve been
Should Police Need A Warrant To Obtain Your Cellphone Location Data?
On TV and in the movies, when the police want location information on a suspect’s cellphone, the world-weary detectives just mosey into the office of a wireless company and bully/sweet-talk the receptionist into handing over this information by saying things like “You don’t want us to have to wait here while we get a warrant, do you?” In the real world, it’s not that simple, and the question of whether or not an actual warrant is needed has yet to be resolved. [More]
Sen. Franken Demands Answers From Apple About iPhone Tracking
Yesterday, it was revealed that Apple iPhones and 3G-enabled iPads have been, unbeknownst to their users, recording their locations with corresponding time stamps in a file named “consolidated.db.” This discovery did not please Al Franken, the U.S. Senator from Minnesota, who has fired off a letter to Apple bigwig Steve Jobs. [More]