[Air-L] Apple surveilling children ... Ethical? Legal?

pearse stokes pearsestokes at gmail.com
Sun Apr 24 14:32:12 PDT 2011


I've recently posted the following on my blog. I'd love to hear people's
thoughts on this ...

So, for the last week there has been a huge debate about Apple and their iOS
4 software’s ‘tracking’ ability. For those who don’t know, Apple’s iPhone’s
since iOS 4 have been tracking their owners – keeping a file on the phone
and on any computer the deveice has been synced with that records the
whereabouts of the phones owner.

Clearly the clandestine nature of this applicaiton indicates Apple’s own
stance; that this is fundamentally unethical and that they are doing
something that their customers would strongly disagree with.

That’s all fine, its all fairly cut and dry. The sooner an open source iOS
reaches the same level of proficiency of say, Linux on computers, I’ll make
the switch. The big question that I want to consider, and I would hope
others with an interest in technology and society would consider it too, is
‘What is Apple doing when it stores the information of younger users?’

Essentially, for kids and younger teenagers who own iPhones, Apple has been
tracking them. Apple has in fact been surveilling children and legal minors.
While some older users or parents may not have an issue with their own
whereabouts being tracked, I’m sure they would take issue with someone,
anyone, compiling a list of their kids’ whereabouts.

So, thoughts?

If you are interested, here’s an app that will allow you see your own
whereabouts, you’ll be able to see the information that Apple have captured
represented on a map. Its interesting;
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/04/your-iphone-is.php


-- 
Pearse Stokes
http://cyberanthropology.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/apple-surveilling-children-ethical-legal/



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