Internet Privacy 101 - Your Safety Guide to Social Networking

Posted 09/30/2010 at 12:51pm | by Adam Berenstain

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Roam Safely with iOS 4

How to use Location Services without sacrificing your privacy

Scenario:

You love iOS 4, but worry that its multitasking feature could let some apps broadcast your location to advertisers and other people without your knowing about it. Should you turn off your iPhone’s GPS to keep from being tracked wherever you go?

Solution:

Thanks to multitasking, location-aware apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp can monitor your location 24/7, even after you launch a new app. You might not have a stalker following your every move, but it may not be such a great idea to broadcast to potential robbers the times when you’re not at your apartment. Meanwhile, iOS 4’s iAds can anonymously report your browsing habits, responses to ads, and other information to advertisers (similar to what Google’s offered for years). If neither scenario sits well with you, here’s how to keep tabs on just how public your next stroll with an iOS 4 device will be.

If your iPhone is still running OS 3.1.3 or earlier, you can only turn off Location Services entirely, not per-app, as you can in iOS 4.

Opt Out

If you’d prefer to opt out of iAds’ anonymous data collection and let modern-day Don Drapers fend for themselves, launch Safari on your iOS 4 device and navigate to http://oo.apple.com. Your device will instantly be removed from iAds’ targeted-advertising plan, but you’ll have to repeat the process on all your iGizmos to prevent each of them from sharing your information. When you’re done, you’ll still see iAds in your apps, but they’ll no longer be targeted to, or gather information about, your interests.

You'll still see iAds, but they won't "see" you.

However, Apple still reserves the right to collect some location-based data from iOS 4 users. This can be anonymous data shared with Apple and its partners, or it can be the specific, personal information Apple uses to make its Find My iPhone service work its magic. For more information, check out Apple’s privacy policy at www.apple.com/privacy/.

Tweak the Settings

To manage which apps can keep track of your location, go to Settings > General > Location Services. There you can turn off location tracking entirely, or allow it on an app-by-app basis depending on what you’ve installed. If you trust Apple, you can let Camera, Compass, and Maps note your location while disallowing third-party apps like IMDb or Flickr--or vice-versa. However, even if you turn off Location Services, all apps will prompt you to turn it back on the next time they try to use the feature.

Get ready to see this popup a lot.

Watch It

With iOS 4, there’s no mystery about which apps have noted your location--a small arrow appears in your iPhone’s status bar to let you know when an app is accessing Location Services. Better yet, the Location Services menu in Settings posts an arrow beside any app that’s tracked your position in the last 24 hours. If you’ve taken a picture with embedded location data or found north with Compass, there’s an alert for that.

The little arrow by Camera means that the app has checked our location in the past day.

Find My iPhone

Remember that if you turn off Location Services entirely, Find My iPhone won’t work, because the GPS chip has to be active to locate your device. If you’re not a MobileMe user, it’s a moot point because you won’t have Find My iPhone, but anyone who’s used the service knows what a lifesaver it can be. MobileMe customers should activate Find My iPhone in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > MobileMe, by flicking Find My iPhone to On, and then always keep Location Services turned on too.

If you have MobileMe, don't do anything that would disable Find My iPhone. Trust us.

Fool Foursquare

The obvious answer to keeping your activities private on social location-aware apps like Foursquare is “Don’t use Foursquare.” Of course. And obviously think twice about linking it to your Twitter and Facebook accounts if you tend to keep those status updates more public than your hand-picked list of Foursquare friends.

Shh, don't tell.

But if you’re addicted to checking in, earning badges, and chasing that elusive mayorship of your favorite coffee shop, you can also check in “off the grid” by setting Share With Friends to No, and deselecting Twitter and Facebook. Foursquare counts the check-in but doesn’t publish it in the Foursquare app or on Foursquare.com. Not even your friends can tell where you are.