Lawmakers pressed representatives from Apple and Google to explain their privacy policies Tuesday, questioning whether the companies’ practices ensure that cellphone users control their personal data.
“I believe that consumers have a fundamental right to know what data is being collected about them,” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said at a hearing of the new Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law. “I also believe that they have a right to decide whether they want to share that information and with whom . . . and when.”
Apple’s software chief, Guy “Bud” Tribble, said the company is committed to user privacy. “Apple does not track users’ locations,” he said. “Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.”
Alan Davidson, Google’s director of public policy in the Americas, said the company’s Android smartphone platform has a similar policy. “All location data that is sent back to Google’s location servers is anonymized and is not traceable to a specific user or device,” he said.
But Franken challenged the assertion that the location data are anonymous. He asked another witness, researcher Ashkan Soltani, whether the time-stamped location data could be used to track users. Soltani said he thought it was possible and that assertions the data are anonymous are “not really sincere.” Photo: Jin Lee, Bloomberg
