Earlier today, the US Senate judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on privacy, technology and the law. You can view a video of the opening statement by Senator Al Franken from today’s hearings here.
The purpose of this hearing was to aid lawmakers in understanding if current privacy laws around tech (which are quite old) are still valid or need updating. But what did Bud Tribble, an MD, PhD engineer and Apple’s Vice President of Software Technology have to say versus Google’s representative, Alan Davidson, who happens to be a lobbyist? Let’s look at Apple’s statements and answers to key questions, then cross-check with Google’s answers.
Apple
First, the big question is whether or not Apple is “tracking you.” In opening statements, Tribble pointed out (also in his written testimony) that Apple is “deeply committed” to protecting consumers’ privacy, and Apple does not share personally identifying information with third-party vendors without explicit consumer agreement.
As stated in a release on April 27, 2011, the company does not track you and never has had any plans to track your whereabouts. Instead, the location database is designed to provide a crowdsourced database of local Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular towers in order to provide a quicker method for locating an iPhone on a map faster than GPS would alone. This information is not used by Apple itself, but can be accessed by applications that happen to use Location Services. These services can be turned off, and last week, Apple fixed a bug which stored these on the computer you use to sync in an unencrypted way and which contained all locations. Tribble also mentioned that in the “next major version of iOS this data will be encrypted.”
Continue reading The difference between Apple and Google at the Senate hearings
The difference between Apple and Google at the Senate hearings originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 10 May 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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