“Indeed, as much as a year ago Apple admitted to the fact that it ‘intermittently’ collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours, according to a letter the company sent to U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas),” reports the WSJ,” Watson and Jones report. “Google’s HTC Android phones [sic] collect location data every few minutes and transmit that information directly to Google several times an hour, including the unique phone identifier, meaning that Google can keep tabs on the movement of a known individual almost constantly. Since people now ubiquitously carry their cellphones everywhere they go, this is akin to having a tracking microchip implanted in your forehead.”
Watson and Jones report, “However, far from being a recent phenomenon, as the media would have us believe, tracking of individuals via their cellphones has been going on for almost ten years at least. Under the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the FCC mandated that by October 1, 2001 a quarter of all new cellphones be equipped with GPS functionality that would allow authorities to track the location of users. By the end of 2002, this became a mandatory requirement of all new cellphones.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Ron G." for the heads up.]
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