Your Apps Are Watching You

An article, "Your Apps are Watching You" by Scott Thurm and Yukari Iwatani Kane discusses how privacy on certain Smart Phones, such as the Iphone, are not as strict as you may think. It was found that different Smart phones are spreading personal information about the cell phone owner such as location, age, gender, zip code, the phone's unique ID number, and other sorts of personal information, to different companies without the user's consent. This sort of act is occurring when certain applications on the phone are accessed by the user.

Both Google and Apple back up their privacy content laws by stating that they had created strong privacy protections for their customers, especially for and regarding location based data. An Apple spokesman said, "Privacy and trust are vitally important."The Journal tested different Apps in Apple's Iphone and in Google's Smartphones and found that the most common shared detail was the phone's unique ID number. This ID number is tracked by the carrier and company to monitor what the user is downloading, using, how much time they use the different apps, etc.

Google and Apple seem to think that they have a hold on what their privacy laws control, but it is obvious that there are several ways of getting around these issues. There are certain applications that ask for permission to transmit personal information through the phones, but it can be said different about other applications. Most people are unaware of the fact that their phones are doing this, and that nothing is really being done about it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576020083703574602.html