IPhone Location-Tracking Incident Boosts Stock of 'Privacy By Design'
With a Senate hearing scheduled for tomorrow, the concept of privacy by design could get more attention.
Mon, May 09, 2011
Computerworld — What does the world's most valuable company now have in common with the following initiatives?
iPhone Location Tracking Confusion: 7 Key Facts
* Online-behavioral tracking * Deep-packet inspection * Persistent cookies * Unique microchip identifiers * Single sign-on for all Web commerce * Paying by fingerprint * Street View Wi-Fi sniffing * Admiral Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program
The common denominator? Privacy quicksand. This is the sandy arena frequented by regulators and legislators and stirred up by privacy advocates. Once your project or technology walks into this particular sand trap, it's hard to pull your reputation out of the mud.
The operating dynamic of privacy quicksand is that first impressions count more than facts. This is because people instinctively are wary of large and powerful organizations and assume the worst. If your organization's new product or technology could spy on its users, they'll assume it's happening. The end result of walking into the privacy quicksand is that your project usually gets scaled back or canceled.
Apple has one foot in the sand, and tomorrow's hearing by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law may determine if it's able to sidestep the rest of the pit.
The maker of the world's most popular smartphone has found itself under this scrutiny because of a report two researchers issued last month that claimed that Apple was storing iPhone users' location data in an unencrypted file in their iTunes accounts . Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs a letter the same day requesting an account of the situation. See the table below for a timeline of the incident.
Timeline of the Apple iPhone location-tracking controversy
I think Apple has a good chance of coming out OK. The feature in question was designed to make the iPhone work a lot faster. iPhone users who love the device are probably going to give the company a strike or two before they start questioning its motives on privacy. Plus, Apple says it's already working on fixing the privacy and security features that could have been done better in the first place.
People who do privacy for a living are saying Apple could have avoided this diversion. They're pointing to the "privacy by design" methodology as the way to make sure new products and technologies don't walk into the privacy quicksand.
What is privacy by design?
It's the notion that you should build good privacy practices -- such as storing the minimum personal data necessary -- into the design phase of new products.
