Does your cell phone violate your rights?
According to CTIA - The Wireless Association, an organization representing the interests of the wireless communications industry, cell phones were used by 96% of the U.S. and territorial population (including Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands) in December 2010.
A recent Nielsen survey reported that almost one third of U.S. cell phone users are utilizing smartphones. While the growing adoption of smartphones is good news for phone manufacturers, the advanced computing capabilities and wireless connectivity of smartphones raise new concerns regarding privacy rights.
Smartphones provide users continuous mobile access to the Internet. As a result, smartphones contain a treasure trove of personal information, including banking information, travel plans and family photos. However, while use of advanced security software is commonplace on our computers, many of us are not safeguarding the personal information stored on and transmitted through our smartphones. While there is security software for smartphones including anti-virus and encryption software, it is not available for all models of cell phones and has not been widely adopted.
A recent study conducted by mobile security company AdaptiveMobile discloses that 2010 saw the highest number of Smartphone malware (short for malicious software) infections, up 33% from 2009. AdaptiveMobile expects to see an exponential increase in such attacks in the next year as the adoption of smartphones becomes more widespread. In a society well aware of computer viruses and identity theft, why are we not protecting our smartphones from such attacks?
Amongst the continued confusion over what information is being tracked by our cell phones and the debate over whether this tracking is helpful or harmful, what remains clear is that many of us are largely uninformed when it comes to the information that is being stored on our cell phones.
In addition to failing to protect personal information stored on cellphones from access by others, many smartphone users are also unwittingly broadcasting their personal information to the world. Geotagging is the addition of geographical information to media such as photographs or video. If geotagging is enabled on your smartphone, uploading media to the Internet simultaneously uploads your location. By uploading geotagged images you may be sharing your home address, details of your daily routine or the fact that your house is empty while you are out of town. It is easy to see how this information can be used and misused for everything from targeted marketing to targeted crime.
Most troubling is that many users have no idea that geotagging is occurring on their phone. Many smartphones come with geotagging automatically enabled. As geotags are generally invisible unless specific software is downloaded to enable visualization of the tags, many users are completely unaware that they are sharing more than pictures and videos when they upload media files to the Internet.
Link:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/opinion/article_00dc6c8e-7512-11e0-a4f2-001cc4c03286.html