Chapter 12: Life On The Grid: iPhone Becomes Itrack

1. Why do cell phone manufacturers (Apple, Google, and BlackBerry) want to track where their customers go?

Answer: Cell phone manufacturers want to track where their customers go because:

• Manufacturers and their customers can use this information to trend consumer buying habits and pinpoint poorly selling or defective products.
• Enables carriers and retailers to cull important information about a phone through its lifecycle, pinpointing when a unit is shipped, received, returned, and refurbished.
• Both Apple and Google claim the information is being used only to identify the location of cell phones for Wi-Fi-connected phones, and to improve the customer experience of location-based services.
• Apple’s technology reads the signal strength of nearby Wi-Fi transmitters, identifies and maps their location, and calculates the location of the iPhone device.
• Advertising firms will pay Apple and Google for that information and for distributing their mobile ads, manufacturing firms will earn money from there.
• Enable advertising companies send us advertisements, coupons, and flash bargains, based on where we are located.
• If our cell phone is lost, then the manufacturers can help us to track the location of our cell phone.

2. Do you think cell phone customers should be able to turn tracking off? Should customers be informed when they are being tracked? Why or why not?

Answer:

Yes, I think that there should be a feature to turn such features off. Customers should be informed even though most apps do display that GPS and network access is a requirement for the application. By doing so, the privacy of customer will be protected. Sometimes customers might don’t want others to know where they are and what are they doing so it is better to turn tracking off. For example, if we don't want our location to be tracked on our cellphone by police, just turn the GPS off, otherwise we've got no expectation of privacy.

How to Prevent Cell Phones from Being Tracked :

• Watch for signs your phones is being tracked. Does your battery drain faster than it should, is your phone interfering with your radio even when turned off, or is your phone still warm after hours of being idle. You may also have difficulty turning your phone off, your phone may light up when not performing any of its normal functions, or you hear strange background noises during your calls. While none of these alone indicate your phone is being monitored, several together can be cause for worry.
• Take your phone to your service provider. Ask them to wipe your phone's memory and restore it to its factory presets. While this will erase all data, it should also remove any tracking and/or eavesdropping software on your phone.
• Keep your phone turned off when not in use. While this will do little to circumvent eavesdropping, it will prevent the gps in your phone from broadcasting your position. Tracking devices can only find your location when you make or receive a call and/or text.
• Call your wireless service provider's customer service. If they are tracking your phone, they are charging your account for this service. As it is illegal in most countries for a private citizen to track another phone, your service provider will inform you whether they are tracking your particular phone. If they are, you can have this service removed from your cell phone.

3. Do you think cell phone tracking is a violation of a person’s privacy?

Answer:

        Yes. Smartphones contain a treasure trove of personal information, including banking information, travel plans and family photos. However, while use of advanced security software is commonplace on our computers, many of us are not safeguarding the personal information stored on and transmitted through our smartphones. While there is security software for smartphones including anti-virus and encryption software, it is not available for all models of cell phones and has not been widely adopted.

          Apple iPhones and Google Android smartphones are regularly tracking people locations and recording this information in a hidden file stored on our phones. Anyone able to access our phones can use the stored locational information to reconstruct our daily travels and routine. 

          Verizon Wireless is selling all our app usage and location information to marketers.Verizon is not only tracking consumers, it is sharing that information with other companies, and possibly linking it to databases with more of your personal information. 

          Cell phone tracking is a violation of a person’s privacy. Cell phone tracking enables someone to track other person location without the consent of that person. It will cause disturbance for that person or cause many problem, such as the enemies of that person can track that person location and plan to murder that person. Moreover, bank information or other private and confidential information flow to other people means it violate a person’s life.

          Strict ethics and security measures are strongly recommended for services that employ positioning, and the user must give an informed, explicit consent to a service provider before the service provider can compute positioning data from the user's mobile phone.

         Officially, the authorities like police can obtain permission to position phones in emergency cases where people including criminals are missing. So, the cell phone tracking should give to some specific people, not to all the people. That specific people make sure the information not flow to other people.