Well if you're paranoid enough about being spied on, surely you just don't use a mobile phone? In fact, there's a specialist who helps you "drop off the grid" - ie untraceable.

I read that article last night and was intrigued about some aspects. The bottom line is: don't do anything you wouldn't want the public to know about.

But should we HAVE to behave like this?

Exactly right.

What a clusterf*ck

Oh I completely agree it's wrong and Orwellian but there's bugger all you and I can do about it.

What if we all stopped buying smartphones??

Oh wait, nobody's gonna do that.

Most of that article applies to regular mobiles too though.
You don't need a smart phone for the cops to know approximately where you are (the GPS here often places me next door anyway), nor to have a camera on your phone. Most phones in the last 5 years have got that.
As for your browsing habits, well that's no different to your home browsing habits, is it?
I didn't really see any issues in that piece that are 'new'.

Only difference is that criminals are likely to have a phone on them not a laptop.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.

Anyone with enough interest to learn and a PC (and I assume in ignorance that it's the same for Mac owners) can avoid tracking by way of cookies, supercookies, cache etc. when it comes to browsing. I'm also not aware of a laptop/PC with GPS.

What concerns me is specifically the elements of that tech and the OS that I cannot control. Does my PC take a snapshot of what I'm doing at any point before rotating itself? No. At least I don't think so. In the drive to become cool and have the most effortless GUIs for the idiot masses we've handed our personal data over to Google FFS and Steve Jobs. Neither are exactly bastions of privacy. We have virtually zero control over the browsers on either OS and many other elements of their functionality.

This lack of control and the power handed to those who supply my tech, is what concerns me...

Yes but for most people it will be an irrelevance, unless they are cheating on a partner. Longer term though I do share your concerns. We have no idea of what the future holds and so it could be important to not have such features.

The way these things work is poco a poco. Inch by inch at a pace acceptable to the masses until one day we wake up to realise that it's too late to do anything.

Yes I do think that mission creep by the Police is worrying. I have no issues about national security measures unless it restricts protest.

Re. the GPS location thingy - data collected even when it's turned off.
I thought the experiences of our fair forumites were that the data generated was far from accurate, at least to the point of there being 'reasonable doubt'?
(I'm also wondering how the GPS can be collecting data when it's off, without hitting the battery life - my battery life takes a noticeable hit with it on).

But to be Bratty for a minute, how do we KNOW that they're not collecting data when it's switched off? Is it possible that the fact that it seems impossible without battery life drain is the very thing that allows "them" to collect data without our suspicion. Jus' sayin.

Because when that all came to light, and the script was released that allowed us to see this info for ourselves, a lot of folk here were commenting that it had recorded them as being often 10's, if not 100's of miles from where they actually were that day.
From the results I saw here, you'd be more accurate just using the cell towers, and even that won't accurately pinpoint you to within a few metres (as far as I'm aware).

The problem is that while it might be claimed that it could provide an alibi it only proves that your phone was in a certain location. You could be in another area hacking a body up in someones bath while your friend is taking your phone on a trek to Swansea.