HN Explorer

iOS 8 tracks your physical activity by default

7 points by swiil ↗ HN
- Step 1: prepare yourself - Step 2: open the "health" app - Step 3: open "health data" - Step 4: open "fitness" from the menu - Step 5: open "steps" - Step 6: WTF! - Step 7: search for other data your phone is keeping on you without letting you know and post it here.

12 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 36.0 ms ] thread
swiil
I should say this is an iPhone 5s - I doubt the iPhone 5 has the features required to track steps.
Watabou
Yeah, this isn't new. This is what the M7 (and the M8 inside iPhone 6) does.

And more importantly, this data is never stored in the cloud and never leaves your device, according to Apple.

swiil
On by default? I'm not cool with that - are you?
Watabou
Yeah I am actually.

What does it matter when the data never leaves the device?

And it's not like it's draining your battery either. M7/M8 are very low power.

kolev
Spying on you by default... A lot of people don't understand how much self-incriminating information there is in all that physical activity data. Imagine you're accused of committing a violent murder. And you own an iPhone. And you claim you were sleeping at that time. But your physical acitvity data shows otherwise.
coralreef
Wouldn't they need to decrypt the data in the first place? But perhaps that digresses from the point...
r00fus
The major problem is parallel construction. If the police can use this data - obtained illegally and surreptitiously using tools like accessdata or cellebrite to search for confirmation, they could extract a plea from you or find/manufacture other facts that do incriminate you or tear down your defense.
chaf
Install fitbit in ios7 on a iphone 5s. You will get the same result. I dont see this as a problem it doesnt track your gps only your steps.
runjake
It's not quite the same, because the first time you launch the FitBit app, iOS asks you if you want to give the FitBit app access to your motion data. This works the same with every 3rd party app.

With the Health app in iOS 8, it grants implicit permission and there is apparently no way to remove permissions to your motion data for the Health app.

Is that data going into Apple's cloud? I don't believe so. Is it a big deal to this cloud-conscious guy? Not really.

chaf
But when you give it access you can get data for a couple of weeks. So the m7 chip is keeping the data but you dont see it. I also believe that it only stored on the phone and I think this is a setting to get people to use healtkit.
runjake
Right, but my point is that the user has control over giving motion data from the M7 to the Fitbit app. The user does not have the same privacy controls for the Health app. I cannot switch off Health app access to motion control in the privacy settings.
swiil
Bottom line for me - this feature is on by default. This should be an option. Deleting the data from the device should be available and it's not. Regardless of if the data was encrypted or not it's existence creates the potential for privacy violations. It's not far fetched to assume that your insurance company will inevitably ask you to share this info before issuing a policy. Isn't this blatant lack of concern for privacy why we're all here? I'm scared about the lack of our concern.