US Senators pen Act to ban location-based stalking Two US senators have filed a new Act called the Location Privacy Protection Act, which would require stricter controls and more transparency for all cellular companies that collect location data. The Bill, brought by Senator Al Franken and co-sponsored by Senator Richard Blumenthal would make it illegal to divulge location …
Location tracking raises many important questions, but the discussion around it is becoming confused. On the one hand, I *don't* want my location data to be given to anyone without my express agreement. I think most would agree with that. But on the other hand, I don't want to to have to give approval for my GSP software to access my location *every, single time* I want to use it (provided the location isn't 'harvested' by anyone).
What I'm not seeing is a distinction between these uses. Perhaps I've misunderstood, but this article implies that the proposed act will require the users permission for every single location-data access by an application. If that is so, we should make it clear to these Senators that this is nonsensical. However, if the act only requires permission for the data to be passed to a 3rd party, this needs to be clearly stated in articles discussing the proposed act.
It could work with two levels of allow/deny - say, individual applications are one-time approved for access to location data, and you can also switch locationing on or off for the whole device, like you have etiquette mode, airplane mode, wi-fi on and off.
Or, similar, but on the screen where you enable or disable location globally, you can also disable or enable location for each app.
Of course this would be an OS update to comply with the new law for every app on the device; if you can't update the OS, then each application would indeed have to manage the permission itself - if allowed at all. Or, it is managed somewhere on the Internet instead of on the device itself: your location would be uploaded, and apps would then have to download it back to your device, being permitted to do so. Apps using an old OS feature to obtain the location locally on the old OS would be retroactively banned.
That is, the old OS plus the old apps would not be allowed to share location information as they do now, before the legislation exists; you would have to update the apps - or they would be put in a wrapper that denies them access to that OS feature.
from the video: "... our federal laws on this subject are a confusing hodgepoge full of gaps and loopholes..."
Sen. Franken, truer words were never spoken... and equally applicable to any subject.
If interested, [PDF] text is here:
http://franken.senate.gov/files/docs/Location_Privacy_Protection_Act_of_2011_Bill_Text.pdf
Not to be confused with the senate bill from a decade ago which is here;
http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong107/privacy/location/s1164is.asp
You must of been alseep, because the US courts are clamping down. Cops now must apply for warrant to put GPS tracker on cars and certain data from cell phone towers. Al Fraken is not going to be bought by the corporations.
Funny thing is it takes a comedian to run for congress to protect US citizen.
The advertising/media lobby will hate this - location based advertising is supposed to be the 'next big thing', and this would stop that cold in its tracks. It might actually be in Apple and Google's favor if this passed though, they couldn't pass along the location data but they could use it themselves to generate location based advertising. I don't think the app would need location information for iAd to generate an ad for Pete's ice cream if you're sitting on a bench across the street playing Angry Bird while waiting for the bus.
The Cell Towers are "Points of Interest". These can easily be exchanged for other arbitrary Landmarks. The ***user's*** location is not relevant, only the ***user's*** choice of Landmark, which may be on the other side of the world.
e.g.
Washington, DC http://www.rustprivacy.org/2011/phase/washington-dc.html
Canberra ACT, Australia http://www.rustprivacy.org/2011/phase/canberra-au.html
Dublin, Ireland http://www.rustprivacy.org/2011/phase/dublin-ie.html
If you'll excuse the expression, the clock is running out on the Advertising Industry's claim that gadget users do not know their own location.
A quick read shows that under the section called "Exceptions"
"A covered entity may knowingly collect, receive, record, obtain, or disclose to a nongovernmental individual or entity the geolocation information from an electronic communication device without the express authorization of the individual that is using the electronic communications device if the covered entity has a good faith belief that the collection, receipt, recording, obtaining, or disclosure is... for the sole purpose of transmitting the geolocation information to the individual or another authorized recipient, including another third party authorized under this subparagraph"
Translation: Google, Apple, Verizon, et al. only need to have a warm fuzzy about who they give the data to without doing any verification, much less a rigorous verification. "Gee, we looked them in the eye and they seemed like such nice blokes. We are the victims here because our 'good faith belief' in them was betrayed."
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