There is no such thing as absolute privacy or security for smartphone users. The only way you can have control is by not storing information that you want to keep a secret on your phone.
As Apple CEO Tim Cook said last year, “The people who track on the internet know a lot more about you than if somebody’s looking in your window, a lot more.” It should make us pause to think about how we use our phones.
Apple, according to Zak Doffman, believes it is “privacy protector-in-chief,” and iOS14 is intended to demonstrate its privacy-first approach. Doffman points to the ongoing battle between Apple and Facebook over ad tracking, remarking, “Exploitation of our personal data has become a commodity traded between the world’s largest organisations.”
However, iOS users were surprised when Apple explained its location tracking. It is an invasive feature, and as Doffman says, “a perfect illustration of just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
Were you aware that the location tracking builds up a data collection of all the places you have visited, including times, dates, the type of transport you used to get there and how long you stayed at the location.
Jake Moore of ESET commented, “significant locations is one of those features hidden within the privacy section which many users tend not to be familiar with. I cannot think of a positive or useful reason why Apple would include this feature on any of their devices.”
If you check out the data repository on your iPhone, you will likely see that it stores certain places, times and dates, and that is because it is trying to work out if this might be important for a photo memory or a calendar entry. But do you really want this? I agree with Doffman when he says, “I don’t need my phone tracking every single location I visit and deciding which it deems significant to save me a few seconds of effort.”
According to Apple, the device wants to “learn the places that are significant to you.” However, you can breathe a small sigh of relief when you learn that the “data is end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by Apple.”
What this illustrates is that even though the data is encrypted, you still don’t have absolute control over the security of your iPhone. John Opdenakker, an information security expert, said, “While Apple’s encryption and device-only restriction certainly reduces the security and privacy risks, I personally switched this feature off because it doesn’t offers real benefits and just feels creepy.” He added, “What worries me from a privacy perspective is that this feature is enabled by default and that the setting is hidden away such that the average user probably doesn’t find it.”
Don’t forget that you can turn off other location-based services on your Apple device, such as ads and alerts. Want to know where to find them all? Just go to “Settings-Privacy-Location Services-System Services-Significant Locations.”