Terry let us know about these scary details dug up by PC World. Sprint has turned over customers GPS data to authorities over 8 million times in the last year. The number is grossly inflated because police can request location updates every 3 minutes for up to 60 days. They even provide law enforcement with a easy tool to lookup where customers are located. I know that this might help police especially with kidnappings and fugitives but it remains a pretty scary fact.
Gizmodo also points out that Sprint is storing up to 24 months or URL history for some devices just because marketing wants to look through the data. Makes me wonder how much my cellphone carrier knows about me, and shares with others.
Now I will go hide in bed with my tinfoil hat on…
FOSSroxTHX Not Registered
Posted: December 2, 2009 at 4:02 PM EST
Look, people, today’s cell-phone is an always on, always on-you, wireless microphone and camera with voice and data transmitting and logging capabilities. Prudence is necessary. Anything allowed out should be considered always out. If you value your privacy then carrying the always on wireless microphone and camera everywhere you go is probably not the best idea, right?
DavidB ( View Profile) Guru - Posts: 1751
Posted: December 2, 2009 at 4:56 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9530
Yeah sure. We should all turn in our BlackBerry now!
What, you thought GPS in every cell phone was mandated for your safety? Har!
From my BlackBerry Storm…
DavidB ( View Profile) Guru - Posts: 1751
Posted: December 2, 2009 at 5:00 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9530
If Sprint gave up 8 million locations and they are about half the subscriber size of Verizon or ATT, imagine the number those two have given up! Imagine the map for that!
But, how many folks freely share this info 24/7 anyway on Facebook, Latitude, etc.? Probably NOT too many criminals, but there’s plenty of dumb crooks out there.
From my BlackBerry Storm…
CJ Not Registered
Posted: December 3, 2009 at 2:41 AM EST
This story is quite erroneous. It wasn’t 8 million customers it was 8 million api calls which equates to a few hundred users.
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5299
Posted: December 3, 2009 at 7:38 AM EST
There is nothing actually wrong about the story. We even mentioned that the number is grossly inflated but still the fact that they can and are able to track you in seconds is a scary fact.