So, let's say your worst fears are true, and it's sending up a log of every app you use. What happens then? What's the harm? I'm not being rhetorical, I really don't follow what the fear is here. I can't imagine how my life would be any different if some company knows that I launched chrome at 12:22, then hangouts at 12:30, then some half-assed game at 12:35.
Just because its fun to play "worst case scenario"...
An actuary finds a link between late night cell phone usage and mental illness X. They determine that given your cell phone usage pattern, you have an 50% chance of illness X. Such information is sold to insurance companies, employment background check companies, yada yada
>> "An actuary finds a link between late night cell phone usage and mental illness X. They determine that given your cell phone usage pattern, you have an 50% chance of illness X. Such information is sold to insurance companies, employment background check companies, yada yada"
What scares me about this is that there is a place in the world having an illness affects your employment prospects and costs you money (insurance).
That's a little too obvious to state so I won't pretend there's people here that haven't figured that out yet for the sake of overly-pedantic or naive arguing. You're moving into "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" territory.
> Is that just a fundamental value for you?
Yep. It's in my country's constitution and protected under various laws.
I'm referring to the 4th amendment in the Bill of Rights, in the US Constitution that was interpreted by Katz v. United States to protect individuals with a "reasonable expectation of privacy."
> Right, and... what would the harm be there? Is that just a fundamental value for you?
For those that haven't read it, I still recommend this as a good introduction to some fundamental ideas around why privacy should/could be considered a basic right:
An app on a phone doesn't necessarily qualify as being "on the Internet". That's like saying if you use Calculator on your PC then you shouldn't expect privacy on the Internet.
Presumably it's also sending up a log of exactly where and when you used them, too, so it's basically your full high-res location history if you're as smartphone-addicted as most people in the tech industry are these days.
Sorry, I'm relatively new here, so I don't know the etiquette, so I'm responding to you directly. I appreciate the question!
Firstly, it's not a matter of what's the harm, it's a matter of what's their right. The only person with a right to my information is me. I can appreciate the need for financial data sharing (note: need), but I don't appreciate the "need" of phone application data.
My example above with music is a good one. What if the CRIA (RIAA up here) decides to come after me for my music collection, based solely on data gleaned from this company. I own 800+ cds, I've dutifully ripped them all, I've bought another 100+ albums on iTunes, eMusic, etc. But I can't prove the eMusic ones. They're MP3s, and more importantly, because I'm pro-privacy, each one has been regenerated from the original MP3s, headers ripped. That means the MP3 looks nothing like the one I purchased. The problem in the current court system is that although the notion of innocent until proven guilty exists, it would take a long time to establish that reasonable doubt. And this is for legitimate usage of my music collection.
Let's go a (perhaps crazy) step further, pretend you're in America (disclosure: I'm in Canada), and you have two political parties. Political party "A" produces an app that you download, just to check it out. All of a sudden you're deemed to be an "A" as opposed to a "B". As data gets sold, or to be legally accurate "shared only within our partner organizations" you apply for a mortgage at a bank wherein the loan officer is affiliated with "B", and your loan gets denied? Why should your political interest (not even affiliation) have anything to do with your ability to receive financing.
Extend that concept to interest in health insurance, or VPN network usage, or a more realistic general interest in chemistry (I like model rockets, they need propellant).
The reality of the situation is that corporations cannot be trusted, neither can government. At the very least the EXTREME MAJORITY of Terms of Service agreements make it abundantly clear that "data is only shared with partners" or something similar. The net result is that anyone can partner.
We've heard recently of HR departments saying that, because a study showed that sociopaths are (obviously) less likely to have Facebook accounts, people without Facebook accounts are bad hires. There is no personal data that corporate America will not find some way to use for evil.
Why wouldn't sociopaths have facebook? It's an excellent arena to play out little mind-games.
I don't doubt some HR departments would act on something like that, although they probably wouldn't stop hiring people that have a resume with strong leadership positions even though there are studies showing a correlation between attaining management positions and sociopathy...
