Meet Shin Eun-mee, a 27-year-old office worker residing in Euiwang, Gyeonggi.
On a recent workday, she started off her day by using an application on her iPhone called Seoul Bus, which notifies her when her bus to work is coming.
Around midday, she used the Restaurant Finder app to decide where to go for lunch.
She finished her day with CGV, an app introduced by the CGV movie theater chain, and reserved tickets to a movie at the nearest theater for herself and a date.
All of Shin’s apps are location-based in that they are able to provide their service because they know where Shin’s phone is.
“As much as I enjoy the apps on my iPhone, I can’t help but feel worried that my personal information is leaking every time I use them,” she said.
Like Shin, many smartphone users are disturbed about recent news that companies like Apple and Google are collecting their location data. They are the two major companies in the realm of smartphones and smartphone platforms - most smartphones use either Apple’s iPhone operating system or Google’s Android platform.
On Tuesday, the police raided Google Korea and Daum Communications, the country’s No. 2 Web portal, on allegations that they too are collecting location data. And many are debating whether smartphones have brought us overnight into an era of Big Brother, from whom you can’t hide, and whether this is the price we have to pay for convenience in the high-tech era.
Your choice
Some market analysts say that more than 70 percent of smartphone apps are location-based, and the figure may be even higher among top-ranking apps. Some of the most popular applications are location-based, including social networking apps, fitness-related applications and those that use maps and transportation information.
Even apps that appear to have nothing to do with location take advantage of location data. For instance, some photo-taking apps record where and when photos are taken.
The simplest way to avoid having your location exposed is to not use these apps. Alternatively, users can turn off the location-tracking function on most smartphones, although that will obviously limit the usefulness - and the fun - of the device.
The companies are also trying to put consumers’ minds at ease. They say that either the location data they collect is not identifiable with individuals, or that they have notified the users in advance and gotten their approval.
“We haven’t been tracking anyone,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently announced. “The files they found on these phones were basically files we have built through anonymous, crowd-sourced information that we collect from the tens of millions of iPhones out there.”
Google explained that “all location sharing on Android is an opt-in by the user.” When a user activates an Android phone, a screen appears saying Google will collect anonymous location data.
After last week’s raid, Google Korea and Daum Communications put out similar rebuttals. Lois Kim, a representative with Google Korea, said “[the company] only collects location data unidentifiable with individuals upon consent,” while Daum said its location data is anonymous.
App developers appear to be on the same page.
“All smartphones transmit location data and apps provide service using the data. But location cannot be matched to a certain phone number, or certain user, nor is there a need to do that,” said Jeon Seong-hun, head of the social network team at KTH, a Web portal affiliate of KT, Korea’s largest telecom company, and the developer of a social networking app called “ImIN.”
