Canadian Seeks Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple Over iPhone Tracking

An administrative assistant from Vancouver named Amanda Ladas is taking the Apple Corporation to court for violating the privacy and security rights of iPhone users.

According to a recently posted press release:

Ladas is concerned that, without her permission, anyone with moderate computer knowledge can find out where she’s been. She considers the comings and goings of herself and her family to be personal and sensitive information. She has retained legal counsel Ganapathi and Company of Vancouver and a number of leading experts in digital forensics examination, information security, networking and systems administration, geographic profiling and clinical and forensic psychology.  These experts’ extensive reports have been filed together with the certification materials.

Amanda is filing this suit because when she purchased her iPod Touch and iPhone 4 she did not consent to having her location-based information tracked, collected and stored.  However, Apple tracked her anyway, as they do all of their users.

With this being the case, Amanda’s lawsuit seems to hold a lot of weight, considering she is among nearly 7 million people in Canada who are being tracked without their consent, so this could be the beginning of a very large class action lawsuit.

Eric Smith is a Networking and Systems Administration Expert who gave his opinion in the official record for these proceedings.  His report said that “It’s clear that Apple routinely and automatically collects sufficient information such that they can identify the real-world identity of the registered user of an iOS4x device, as well as the device’s physical location, at an update frequency of now less than once every six hours.”

As of right now there is no way to prevent your iPhone from detecting your location, at least not any that I am aware of.  Although, there is now a way that you can encrypt your calls and texts for completely anonymous conversations.

As we reported last week a group of software developers with a history in military intelligence have created a smartphone app called Silent Circle that promises to encrypt voice and text messages for private communication.  Surely, it will only be a matter of time before the people become one step ahead of whoever is trying to track their location.

J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, a staff writer and reporter for The Intel Hub and host of a show called Voluntary Hippie Radio. 

You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his website www.aotmr.com