US Senate grills Apple, Google

Law, reports Mobile Marketing Watch.

In recent months, Congress has ramped up efforts to crack down on potential mobile privacy and security threats born of the location tracking attributes of popular mobile operating systems, like Apple's iOS.

“I am sorry that not everyone was able to get into the room,” senator Al Franken said at the onset of the hearing.

“When I was growing up,” Franken said, “and people talked about protecting their privacy, they talked about protecting it from the government,” writes The Register.

“They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures; about keeping the government out of our families; out of our bedrooms. They talked about, 'Is the government trying to keep tabs on the books I read and the rallies I attend?'”

A fresh look needs to be taken at digital privacy, Franken suggested, because although there are clear laws on the books intended to keep the government from overreaching, things are far more murky in the corporate sphere, where “large corporations that are obtaining and storing increasingly large amounts of our information.”

Senator Patrick Leahy said he was “deeply concerned” about reports that Apple iPhones, Google Android phones and mobile applications were “collecting, storing, and tracking user location data without the user's consent,” writes AFP.

“I am also concerned about reports that this sensitive location information may be maintained in an unencrypted format, making the information vulnerable to cyber thieves and other criminals,” the Democrat from Vermont said.