Anyone that thinks they have privacy on a cellphone, particularly a “smartphone”, is kidding themselves.
From an interesting piece titled “Business Users of Smartphones May Be Breaking the Law” in Epoch Times:
“T-Mobile has admitted that smartphones that are supported by the Android and Apple operating systems (OS) aren’t private or secure forms of telecommunications and computing, because of preinstalled surveillance and data-mining technology developed by Google and Apple.”
More here and it’s well worth reading:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/business-users-of-smartphones-may-be-breaking-the-law_2728442.html
The guy doesn’t know what a generic legal disclaimer looks like if one bit him on the butt, and that’s what T-Mobile handed to him.
“We, too, remember a time before smartphones when it was reasonable to conclude that when you activated service with T-Mobile that only T-Mobile would have access to our personal information. However, with the Samsung Galaxy Note, the iPhone, and many other devices, there are indeed a variety of parties that may collect and use information.” —T-Mobile Privacy Team (FCC Consumer Complaint #423849 filed by Rex M. Lee/public record)
They weren’t going to tell him that there is a world of difference between the data-mining of Google Android’s model and the extremely strong customer privacy promoted by Apple. . . More simply put, Google sells advertising and user data to third party advertisers, Apple does not. Any data Apple may collect is anonymized data to better provide service to you. The link is to Apple’s privacy policy.
Keep in mind, however, that by law, any phone conversation is transmitted in the clear and is recorded and listened to, by the automated sniffers of the NSA at the service provider level regardless of phone make or operating system. The same holds true of basic phone based text messaging. However, messaging between Apple devices, iPhone to iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer does not go by cellular phone connection as a phone call, but rather as data on the internet and is automatically sent encrypted at 256 bit AES encryption. Unfortunately, if you use the Apple Messenger to text to an Android device, it will default back to basic unencrypted cellular text messaging because the Android doesn’t do that except with a third-party app.
“Anyone that thinks they have privacy on a cellphone, particularly a “smartphone”, is kidding themselves.”
I read the fine print on the Twitter app and Google apps and both state that they by installing I have agreed to allow them to use my camera and audio without my permission or knowledge, read my contacts, texts, share data with third parties, etc.