Reply to post: Re: re: Anything interactive MUST collect data as a matter of course, and usually use that data

Re: re: Anything interactive MUST collect data as a matter of course, and usually use that data

1) Why on Earth would it suck up your battery life, your location is uploaded when only when Apple Maps is running and used to improve only Apple Maps?

Quote from your own link:

“We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” notes Cue. “We collect data — when we do it — in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B. We’re collecting the segments of it. As you can imagine, that’s always been a key part of doing this. Honestly, we don’t think it buys us anything [to collect more]. We’re not losing any features or capabilities by doing this.”

The segments that he is referring to are sliced out of any given person’s navigation session. [i.e. only when Apple Maps is running] Neither the beginning or the end of any trip is ever transmitted to Apple. Rotating identifiers, not personal information, are assigned to any data or requests sent to Apple and it augments the “ground truth” data provided by its own mapping vehicles with this “probe data” sent back from iPhones.

Because only random segments of any person’s drive is ever sent and that data is completely anonymized, there is never a way to tell if any trip was ever a single individual. The local system signs the IDs and only it knows to whom that ID refers. Apple is working very hard here to not know anything about its users. This kind of privacy can’t be added on at the end, it has to be woven in at the ground level.

2) Of course you are also aware that Google slurp your location all the time, not even just when Google Maps is running. The best you can get is going to your Google Account settings and clearing location history and then flipping the switches to not update your location history. That means you can't see your location history on the dashboard, but Google still know what it is. And what do Google do with all collected data? Yes, they monetise it via their ad network.