DISQUS

Kip Hakes · 7 months ago

Let's be totally honest here - politicians should stop trying to jump on the 'hip and trendy' technology bandwagon and put time and effort into sorting the economy out. ;)

40_thieves · 7 months ago

Although I mainly agree with Tom Brake - privacy controls in Latitude should be considered, however MPs should focus on the government tracking our movements not Google (yes, I do trust Google more than our present gov.). After all Latitude can be turned off, whereas ridiculous tracking of biometric ID cards cannot.

David Carrington · 7 months ago

Very suprised that there's a Latitude post here with no mention of the new features added in the last few days.

A slight cause for privacy concern is the introduction of an optional KML/JSON "feed" of your location provided by Google. For now, the feed only shows your current location. I'd personally love to get a feed with history.

Ben Smith · 7 months ago

We certainly will be discussing these recent changes - but in this post I wanted to focus on the initial comments by Privacy International. I believe Google deliberately don't store location records to avoid needing to release them to the courts in certain geographies.

TerenceEden · 7 months ago

Hmmm - I don't know which PDA Tom has, but on my BlackBerry and N95 I get a message asking if I want to continue sharing my location when I exit.

What may be happening is Tom is just sending the app to the background, not closing it.

A concern from a UE / UI perspective - but not strictly Google's fault.

ceedee · 7 months ago

When I click on Options in Google Maps Mobile (S60 version) and select Latitude, there are 'privacy options' including one to "Hide your location".
Maybe Tom Brake's PDA(!) version doesn't have that. Or maybe he's a clueless, attention-seeking MP.
But I'd consider that sufficient to preserve my oh-so-secret whereabouts.

squawkBOX · 7 months ago

"In summary, the danger arises when a second party can gain physical access to a user’s phone and enables Latitude without the owner’s knowledge. So, we expressed concerns about the settings and urged Google to set up a daily text message which would reach all devices enabled with Latitude, mentioning the status of Latitude (OFF or ON) by default."

So is he suggesting that with every app we have that tracks us, we must receive a daily SMS to indicate that its still sending information out about our location? Rubbish. Imagine if you use a number of these services.

I think a better solution would be for the industry to come together and come up with some common symbol which could be shown on the handset's front screen (i.e. similar to the SMS alert icon or 3G symbol) to indicate that the location is being broadcast.

If only the UK government cared about its citizen's privacy rights... they would be making Phorm illegal first...

Usually the European Commission are the source of wisdom on these things, I'll await their views with interest. (Viviane Reding et al...)

DanLane · 7 months ago

He mentions a couple of key concerns that I haven't seen addressed by any of the press articles I've read (which, admittedly isn't an exhaustive list). The main one being that Mr Brake's main concern is with the lack of notification after having enabled Latitude, something that Yahoo's Fire Eagle dealt with very well. Latitude is most integrated into the T-Mobile G1 yet after initially enabling it when the feature was first added I haven't had a single reminder that I'm publishing my location. The G1 Google Maps application further compounds this issue by not showing Latitude locations by default, making Latitude "feel" like a sub-section of the Maps application that needs to be turned on every time you enter the application while the tracking code is constantly running as long as the phone is on. In the case of the G1 the answer is simple, the G1 has a status bar along the top with space for notification icons and icons to show that various services that are running or enabled (for example wifi or bluetooth). A simple Latitude icon and a small bit of text saying something similar to"Latitude is publishing your location, tap here to disable" when you drag down the status bar (all features are easily implemented) would address these concerns. On the Nokia S60 platform Google Maps asks "Continue to share your location with Latitude? YES / NO" every time you exit the application. While S60 doesn't have the same level of icon-based service notification Google already have a search application that throws up a hint box every time you unlock your phone. Latitude could easily do the same, every time you unlock your phone you see an unobtrusive message saying "Your location is being shared with Latitude".

On one hand Tom Brake's associations with our government have enabled him to get his concerns out there, unfortunately they have been interpreted by a lazy mainstream press as an excuse to get all sensationalist and go on a witch-hunt. This means that "people in the know" read the odd article saying "MP claims Gooogle SPY program is tracking our mobiles" and assumes, rightfully so given the evidence, that Mr Brake is an idiot.

Even those that see through the mainstream press nonsense will associate Tom Brake with the government and initiatives such as Phorm and the national ID card scheme. And, of course, people get all heated when discussing those two hot potatoes and start losing common sense and the ability to reason as they enter a mob mentality.

What we end up with, sadly, is a group of ordinarily intelligent people appearing to be idiots as they leave their mark in the records of time. It happens again and again and it'll keep on happening.

pfig · 7 months ago

sorry, but i only have time for a snide remark.

am i the only one finding it hilarious that tom's worried about privacy and complains about it to wacky jacqui?

Anon · 7 months ago

A reasonable point, but at least government is somewhat accountable some of the time, to some of the people. Google is the new borg. Can't stand that company anymore.

Iain Collins · 7 months ago

People can take or leave Google, as with any commercial entity.

Not so the government, which is proceeding with expensive, invasive, restrictive and widely unpopular legislation safe in the knowledge they can put off such democratic tomfoolery as holding an election for another few months and can get away with whatever they please in the mean time.

Frankly I'd rather have Google in charge than the current administration. Asking Jeeves about privacy is preferable to asking Jacqui Smith.

At least with the likes of Tom Brake representing the Liberal Democrats I won't feel guilty about voting Conservative in the next General Election.

Anon · 7 months ago

Google is a hyper profitbale monopoly. That never ends well and, given the importance of information to our society, it is not good for us.

martyndavies · 7 months ago

I've used the S60 version of Latitude and found it quite useful. It's pretty clear when it's running in the background, and you can always kill it completely with options/exit/"no" in any case. Also the location info is only shared with those (other Google registrants) that you have explicitly invited. Anyway, if in doubt, you could always switch your phone off.

Location technology is not a new thing, and I think it's indicative of the technical ignorance of our politicians that it takes a pretty harmless app from Google to set them off on a worthless knee-jerk campaign like this.

Denny · 7 months ago

Personally I'd be happy if I could find a way to keep sharing my location from my N82 without keeping Google Maps memory-resident 24/7. It asks me if I want to keep sharing my location when I close it, but what it actually keeps sharing is my location at the time I closed it - not my current location.

Ben Smith · 7 months ago

That's interesting... I'll test my N82 this w/e.

@Pieter13 · 7 months ago

long time i read an objective interview. Please keep this quality guys and girls. It brings back a little faith in journalism.