Apple I-Phone Location Tracker: Not a Big Deal...But Still.

A couple of my buddies have been trying to get me to "go Apple" in the last few weeks. One actually went completely Mac. He has the latest I-Phone and recently bought a Mac computer and started taking lessons to use it from an Apple associate. Seriously? What are we preparing for a royal wedding here?

When news broke today that the I-Phone might actually be tracking and storing data against a user's will I had to start making fun of him. I loathe Apple and anything "Mac-ish". He took my jibbing for a while but then pointed something out to me: My Android does a lot of the same stuff in regards to location recognition as the I-Phone does.

I looked into the matter and he is right. I can log my location, or "check in" on Facebook with my with my Motorola Cliq (even "cruising at 39,000 feet" with some Wi-Fi equipped flights now), I can hit my Google map application and the little blue blinking dot with my avatar and name pops up on the screen with my exact location. And if I link to other people then they track me no matter where I'm at. The same features that I-Phone users and privacy watchdog groups are hopping mad about right now.

But do I want Google or Motorola or T-Mobile (which I now refer to as AT&T-Mobile) to know where I am at every turn? An article from the Associated Press got me even more nervous. Who has access to this information? And how secure is the storage of my location data?

Honestly, I don't go to places that I would be ashamed of going or care if people knew I was there. I mean the occasional Hooter's for Daytona wings is the limit probably. But still...

The prospect of people that I don't care at all for knowing where I'm at when they want to is kind of disturbing. As the article points out, hackers, authorities without proper warrants, and suspicious spouses being able to attain this information makes some people nervous. I would like to point out other scary aspects: bosses, EX-spouses, people that I'm trying to avoid for no reason at all, and the IRS.

To me, though, it isn't about who has access, as dangerous as it might sound. Like I said, I am not attending adult entertainment conventions with Muammar Gaddafi and Charlie Sheen. My whole issue is with privacy. I think checking in with Facebook is neat. I travel a lot with my job and being able to post my location, tag friends that are with me, and share that with my kids is pretty so cool of me. But I want the choice at all times. I don't want my every location posted or stored just-the ones that I choose.

Nothing solid has been reported (and of course Apple and Google were both cited as unavailable) that other smart phones are actually tracking the data the same way that Apple is but I would speculate that they either are or not that far away from it. Also, my tracking software seems flawed. I bought my phone in the Boston area where my family lives and when I listen to Pandora radio I still get Boston advertisements instead of my current location of Baltimore. Yet, Google maps, Facebook, and my fitness tracker application still work. It would seem that the option to turn on and off the location software is easily done. But still...

According to the same article a security expert named Alex Levinson said that the location tracking isn't new and "Either way, it is not secret, malicious, or hidden," Levinson wrote. "Users still have to approve location access to any application and have the ability to instantly turn off location services to applications inside the settings menu on their device." Yeah, dude, but still...

So, "yay", thanks for letting me keep that option smart phone producers. I can still keep my privacy to a point, but still...