| json_metadata | "{"app":"Musing","appTags":["Life"],"appCategory":"Life","appTitle":"When it comes to privacy how much can you \"trust your smartphone\" for that? What are the ways you think of our smartphones can invade our privacy?","appBody":"<p>We know all that recent smartphones are almost all equipped with a GPS chip. It is thus technically possible to track a phone. There are for example applications, called \"trackers\", to locate very precisely his phone in case of loss, it transmitting e-mails with GPS coordinates. The allowed location is very precise. However, these applications must be installed and activated by users, which reduces the risk of malicious use. Still, the smartphone is potentially a \"snitch\" as such.</p>\n<p>There is also a risk of personal information theft (location, email, contacts, attachments, banking data ...) if the user installs malicious applications that access the data on the phone. Thus in 2009 a Swiss company saw one of its applications removed from the Appstore Iphone because it transmitted the phone number of the buyers of the application which were then solicited by phone.</p>\n<p>There is also a risk of \"marketing\", especially because of the concept of \"augmented reality\" that is taking more and more space in our society (see article on augmented reality), mixing virtual and real images. For example, we film a monument with a phone and appear on the screen information about restaurants, museums or subway stations around, or we pass next to a store of a sign, and then receives an advertisement prompting to enter the store in question (promotions, sales, etc.).</p>\n<p>With these technologies in which GPS and internet intertwine, there is a real risk of being \"tracked\" because of the use of geolocation. The Cnil thus remains for the moment very vigilant concerning the reuse of the data for marketing purposes, and one can estimate that the commercial approach behind new types of games or services is sometimes insidious. Also, although \"targeted marketing\" based on geolocation is not prohibited, it will be necessary to ensure that people subscribing to geolocation services are aware of the possible reuse of their data for commercial purposes and that they can oppose it.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>In addition, the \"trackers\" (applications using geolocation to \"track\" a user via his mobile number) are the source of other conflicts for the privacy of smartphone owners. First from the family point of view, but also from his employer. Thus, there is a potential risk that a person can \"follow\" his spouse through the \"tracker\" placed in his mobile phone without his knowledge. Therefore it will be sufficient to launch the application on his own phone, to enter the number of his spouse, and to know, within a radius of a hundred meters, where is the person concerned. A good thing will say some for family life, but an invasion of privacy for others.</p>\n<p>Finally, there is also a risk related to the employer. By transposing the family situation, to the corporate world, it is perfectly conceivable that an employer uses the geolocalisation of the smartphone of one of his collaborators to know his exact situation, which he does during his working time, whether he is in his job or not, what he can do for business travel, etc. And if some companies already use this practice for security reasons, and that results from a \"limited\" private life of the employee collaborator, it appears nevertheless that this practice must be framed.</p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"pkvexhjnx","appParentAuthor":"acesontop","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
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