A highly recommended New York Times in-depth investigation, “Your apps know where you were last night, and they’re not keeping it secret” highlights how many apps not only have access to our location data, which can make sense depending on the type of app and the services we obtain from it, but also that they gather our location information and then sell it on after we have agreed to terms and conditions we never read to the highest bidder.
The most likely response to the article is to open our smartphone’s security options, check which applications have access to our location data and block the lot of them. But in most cases, not only did we know that those apps had access to our location data, but we also agreed to allow it. You may be surprised, if you’re a heavy smartphone user, by the number of apps with access to such supposedly private data--but in most cases, blocking access makes no sense.
For example, allowing the app that manages the lightbulbs in your home access to your geolocation may seem excessive… until you want the lights on when you arrive home or when you want to set them to come on with random patterns to deter potential thieves while you’re on vacation. The same applies to currency exchange when abroad, paying a parking meter with an app or labeling notes based on where you took them. All seemingly unimportant details, but they make our apps work.
Obviously, the apps themselves are not to blame: they’re well-designed and allowing access to your geolocation data makes sense — if not, surely, you wouldn’t have given it, although some of us are guilty of saying yes to all dialog boxes during the installation process without even reading them. The issue here is whether it is reasonable for an app to tuck away a clause in its terms of service that allows it to sell its users’ sensitive geolocation data. The answer is obvious: any app that does so should be fined heavily. Who would imagine that it was okay to sell highly sensitive geolocation data? In other words, if companies are doing so, it’s clearly without users’ knowledge.
This is just another example of why when we tick “I have read and accept the terms and conditions” we’re going along with the biggest lie on the internet. Not because we’re irresponsible, but because you need a law degree and several hours to understand the legalese those terms and conditions are written in. That said, the use of that kind of terminology is no accident. If a company were to write its terms and conditions in normal language, it would probably end up buried in lawsuits of every stripe by crafty lawyers. In the meantime, equally crafty companies hide abusive clauses in their contracts.
The problem, therefore, is not that an app can use our geolocation as part of its value proposition, nor — necessarily — in that we are crazy by allowing it to. The problem is that there are unscrupulous companies out there sheltering behind terms of service they know nobody reads and that allow them to do anything, clauses that any judge would rule as illegal under privacy legislation. Under no circumstances can our geolocation data be sold without our express, unequivocal and clear authorization, signed on a case by case basis. Until we legislate in this regard, we will continue to be exploited and potentially put at risk. Facebook has now patented technology that it intends to use the location data of its users, not to sell it as such, but to sell a prediction of where we might go in the future, and of course it does not even consider what we might think: its terms and conditions allow it to sell our data, all of it, no matter what.
Contrary to common belief, just because something is included in a contract and we sign it doesn’t make it legal. In an online context, for all the reasons cited above, this is even more the case and should be subject to further scrutiny.
