German Government Cracks Down on Apple’s GPS Use
The German Government has gone on the offensive against Apple’s gathering of GPS location information from iPad and iPhone owners. According to a report by German magazine “Der Spiegel“, German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said Apple must “immediately lay out” what personal data is collected, how long it’s stored and what Apple is doing with the data.
Germany has some of the strictest privacy laws of any country in the world. The German Datenschutz (Data Protection) laws are very specific on what user data may be collected or stored and how the user is informed of the data collection practice.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said “Users of iPhones and other GPS capable devices must know what personal information is being collected” and that it would be “unthinkable” if Apple truly was tracking personal and identifiable profile or location data.
Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, recently took the opportunity to lay out Apple’s position on privacy at this year’s All Things Digital conference. “We take privacy extremely seriously. That’s one of the reasons we have the curated apps store. We have rejected a lot of apps that want to take a lot of your personal data and suck it up into the cloud. Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly, that’s what it means. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data.”
Apple will now have the opportunity to demonstrate their openness and commitment to customer privacy as they respond to the German government’s request for information.
Category: iPad News
And at the same time they vote for a law that allows the US government to access our bank data. Yay for german consistency!