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Good that also journalists picked this story. Now, I am not entirely satisfied Qualcomm's answers: "As disclosed in our publicly available privacy policy, the

Good that also journalists picked this story. Now, I am not entirely satisfied Qualcomm's answers: "As disclosed in our publicly available privacy policy, the relevant Qualcomm technologies use non-personal, anonymized, technical data to enable device manufacturers to provide their customers location-based apps and services that end users expect from today’s smartphones." Location data is personal data in the EU. I also wonder how they can provide "location-based apps" based on allegedly anonymized data. Then: "Qualcomm Location Service periodically sends us a unique software ID, the location of your device (longitude, latitude and altitude, and its uncertainty) and nearby cellular towers and Wi-Fi hotspots, signal strength, and time (collectively, 'Location Data')," the Snapdragon goliath explained on its website. "As with any Internet communication, we also receive the IP address your device uses." Contradictions after contradictions.

nomel 4y ago
With all the collection that goes on at the tower [1] and app level [2], I feel like this attention is not properly distributed. Maybe that’s my US perspective talking. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-access-to-real-time-location-data/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-acces... [2] https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/09/30/theres-a-multibillion-dollar-market-for-your-phones-location-data https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/09/30/theres-a-multibilli...
hulitu 4y ago
[flagged]
LorenPechtel 4y ago
A phone won't have a complete map of cell towers and wi-fi, it can't locate itself without using GPS. Thus it's basically saying "I'm somewhere around here, this is what I see. Where am I?". You can't send a query without providing an address to receive an answer. Sending such a query is a lot less energy intensive than GPS and it has a lot more ability to penetrate than GPS--when you're indoors it's the only game in town and I've seen occasional instances where GPS wouldn't even work inside a car unless you put the unit on the dash. A unique ID wouldn't be required for this to work but without some sort of security measure you can figure others would piggyback on your service.
kadoban 4y ago
> Good that also journalists picked this story. Now, I am not entirely satisfied Qualcomm's answers Yeah, their answers are pretty bullshit. The pattern they seem to go for is "no we're not doing X, that'd be crazy, we're just <50 words for X>" I especially liked the section starting with: > A former mobile industry executive familiar with Qualcomm technology told The Register that characterizing AMSS as "a covert operating system" is "total nonsense." And then it goes on to two paragraphs spelling out that it definitely _is_ a covert operating system, but uses different words.

nomel 4y ago

With all the collection that goes on at the tower [1] and app level [2], I feel like this attention is not properly distributed. Maybe that’s my US perspective talking. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-access-to-real-time-location-data/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-acces... [2] https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/09/30/theres-a-multibillion-dollar-market-for-your-phones-location-data https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/09/30/theres-a-multibilli...

hulitu 4y ago

[flagged]

LorenPechtel 4y ago

A phone won't have a complete map of cell towers and wi-fi, it can't locate itself without using GPS. Thus it's basically saying "I'm somewhere around here, this is what I see. Where am I?". You can't send a query without providing an address to receive an answer. Sending such a query is a lot less energy intensive than GPS and it has a lot more ability to penetrate than GPS--when you're indoors it's the only game in town and I've seen occasional instances where GPS wouldn't even work inside a car unless you put the unit on the dash. A unique ID wouldn't be required for this to work but without some sort of security measure you can figure others would piggyback on your service.

kadoban 4y ago

> Good that also journalists picked this story. Now, I am not entirely satisfied Qualcomm's answers Yeah, their answers are pretty bullshit. The pattern they seem to go for is "no we're not doing X, that'd be crazy, we're just <50 words for X>" I especially liked the section starting with: > A former mobile industry executive familiar with Qualcomm technology told The Register that characterizing AMSS as "a covert operating system" is "total nonsense." And then it goes on to two paragraphs spelling out that it definitely _is_ a covert operating system, but uses different words.