December 2016 Articles

Troubling news from a privacy perspective: “Uber says it will continue to collect location data up until five minutes after the ride ends.”

I recognize that having more data may improve their service. However, I’m contracting with Uber to provide me transportation between two points. That does not require them to know my location after dropping me off.

And while Uber’s assertion is that they will not collect location information for more than five minutes after the ride ends, the system level permission we give the app give them the right to collect location data at any time. For context, the app previously required location data “While Using the App”. Now the app doesn’t offer that option and requires that location data be available to the app “Always”.

Of course, “Number of times I’ve gotten to make a decision twice to know for sure how it would have turned out” is still at 0.

Incredible expose on Russian cyberattacks of political, especially Democratic, targets over the past year.

“As we pass 2.5bn smartphones on earth and head towards 5bn, and mobile moves from creation to deployment, the questions change. What’s the state of the smartphone, machine learning and ‘GAFA’, and what can we build as we stand on the shoulders of giants?”