Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amounts’ of location data
priv.gc.ca
priv.gc.ca
Tons of apps sell this info. I think a lot of the 3rd party weather apps have been the traditional worst offenders because everyone wants to know the weather where they actually are in the moment.
Even laws have this problem. There are so many cookie bars on websites that users just click through them anyways.
Every time a company wants to sell on your data, they have to email you and ask permission. Not responding to that message isn't consent.
Find a loophole in that.
But I don't want any of my data collected or shared!
The laws you are hoping for won't allow that - if they existed, at best they would only allow those companies to whom you have consented. Ie the mega-corporations. Local shops would be the ones without the data. Which would be pretty much exactly the opposite way I would choose to share my data, if I were forced to by law.
I agree such laws are necessary, but I'm not sure they're the best of the various solutions. Technical measures might be more robust, such as fine-grain permissions in mobile operating systems. I'd rather it not be possible to collect my data in the first place, than trust that some developer (in whichever jurisdiction) isn't breaking the law.
An advantage of the web is that hostile code is more easily tamed than in native apps, but in itself this observation doesn't do the user much good. Apps are pushed in part because of their superior capabilities for user-hostile functionality.
Similarly, Free and Open Source software is rarely this user-hostile, as few people have the nerve to publish their user-hostile code for all to see. Again though there's a sort of collective-action problem: if only the abstemious few like Stallman insist on not using proprietary software, things don't improve.
ie. the political will to make any such changes just may not exist beyond pure lip service to minority who actually know and care.
I've considered what the options would be for something like "privacy-as-a-service", but I get the feeling that such an industry would be more likely to be regulated to death than the one it's in reaction to.
Ironically, "privacy-as-a-service" already exists to protect the financial records of those with big enough financial records to be able to afford said privacy protection service. One law for me, another for thee.
Any politician that attempts to regulate this can be thwarted by just shadowbanning any content that mentions them on social media - and he'd effectively disappear for a large chunk of people.
That's not law, that's a service!
Make a law where if you ever sell a minor’s data, regardless of whether that minor lied about their age or agreed to a contract (wouldn’t be binding!), then you face steep fines. If you’re found buying data belonging to a minor, also steep fines. If you buy and then de-anonymize data belonging to a minor, really steep fines. To collect and hold data that may belong to a minor, you need to justify it (like GDPR).
Obviously this doesn’t scale for aggregators, advertisers, basically SV, which is the point.
A restaurant is responsible if they sell booze to a minor. A store is responsible if they sell cigarettes to a minor. Serving a minor that lies about their age does not get you off the hook!
Problem solved. User data is toxic. You won’t want to hold onto it for any other reason than a legitimate use.
Steep fines are barely a speed bump to either a profitable business or a scammer. They take years to actually get implemented, don't survive bankruptcy and get reduced in court.
Jail time. Mandatory. Zero room for judges and juries to go easy on the perps.
Even this does not stop white-collar crime, but it maybe slows just a little bit of it.
... but I feel like it isn't the ideal solution. I don't think we should make the perfect the enemy of the good, but what I'd really like to see is that people own their data about them.
I should be able to figure out what vendors have data about me. I should be allowed to be forgotten. There should be severe liability if they don't forget me.
I should be able to contract away my data, but in return for a real benefit, and that shouldn't extend to sale / redistribution.
I don't buy anonymization. De-anonimization is too easy, too good, and progressing too quickly.
- GDPR-like legislation to try to prevent the inappropriate collection of this information.
- Ban the sale of or trafficking in illegally collected personal information. Apply serious monetary penalties to anyone who sells such information improperly. Additionally, anyone who sells such information and subsequently learns that it was improperly collected or was GDPR-deleted must tell their buyers, who must then delete it.
- Buyers are liable if sellers are found to have violated the rules and don’t pay. They are also liable if they fail to honor delete requests. Buyers who consider this liability unacceptable may attempt to purchase or require insurance.
In the US isn’t the sale of illegally acquired data already illegal under 18 U.S. Code § 2315?
I wonder if any existing stalking laws would cover existing data collection practices. Most people are upset when they learn there are records of their location down to a meter or so wherever they go that are sold to anyone who wants it. Does that meet the bar of “emotional distress”?
I'm just thinking out loud, but maybe send my own phone a bunch of fake GPS signals, say, within my own house? Or maybe, somehow 'trade signals' with someone else in a way that collecting the data is useless? Or store my phone in. Faraday cage when I'm not specifically using it? Im sure other people who know the specifics better than I do will flesh it out better that I have, but maybe this will get the ball rolling...
I was thinking the other day of setting up a bunch of VMs with some browser automation with the goal of aimlessly browsing popular sites with the plugin enabled in the background in order to have most ad providers blacklist my IP for ad fraud and thus not trust any data coming from me.
The problem is that it's the internet... the law works for honest websites and companies but not for anyone else.
That's not possible to opt in to under the GDPR, FAFAIK. People can consent to the purpose for which their data will be used, and any such purpose must be enumerated explicitly. "Selling the data" is not a processing purpose, and it would still be illegal even if the person consented (it does not meet the bar for informed consent).
Under the GDPR, the only legal way for personal data to be transferred between companies would be for the "buyer" (processor) to use the data original data from the "seller" (controller) on behalf of the controller. The data, as consented to be collected, remains the liability of the controller for its entire lifetime.
GDPR is not really about selling personal data but about using it; a big part of its effect is on buyers of data since GDPR effectively (there are all kinds of nuances) means that it's not legally possible for legitimate company to simply buy personal data for arbitrary purposes, since the data subject obviously did not opt-in to that particular purpose by that company when the data was collected.
I wholeheartedly admit, some of our data providers are shady, and there's no way I would go work for them. I don't like the way they mislead people.
That said, the data we get is anonymous. Sure, if I know enough about you, and you're in one of my panels, it's feasible that I might be able to figure out which panelist you are. I know there's been some kerfuffle there with less than upstanding "private investigators" and bounty hunters in the past. But, the data we deal with is far too expensive for those sorts.
We find valuable consumer behavior insights the data at regional levels. That creates information that's valuable not only on Wall St, but to retailers and brands, who are desperate for anything to help them understand market share and loyalty.
I dunno. It's a weird world. It's also a very commoditized world. Just having access to the data is no longer the main value add - you have to provide the meaning of it as well.
Different numbers for different categories, but I've read anywhere between 18 - 25% on the higher end opt-in success.
But above example of weather app is a good trick though, probably gets more allow always on location than FB for instance.
https://www.flurry.com/blog/att-opt-in-rate-monthly-updates/...
But signals your phone is sending can and are also being tracked.
Weather apps also have plausible excuses for requesting permissions.
I definitely can't do either, and ive been wrong enough times to know that
And they have continued, off-and-on, to use other location-collecting SDKs.
It just doesn't stop.
I think it's fine, if you're going that fast, you can't be anonymous. Airplanes aren't, missiles sure as shit aren't, the whole atmosphere is under surveillance for anything larger than a baseball.
The capabilities that the military/government pretend to have are VERY different than the capabilities they actually have.
The tracking probably shouldn't extend to customer marketing uses, but the fact that VINs tie to plates tie to drivers' licenses is a system built out of hard decades of experience on the kind of damage people can do if the system isn't tracked and audited.
How does this data prevent either of those things?
I made a big fuss about it at every opportunity and is one of the biggest reasons I left.
In Pennsylvania for example, https://pennsylvania.staterecords.org/licenseplate
There’s a form to fill out. Looking at the instructions it’s E or F, so in theory if you can fulfill one of the reasons in F, I suppose you don’t need the owners information.
Outside of the US, you can also request similar information - Ontario for example.
> Vehicle records ordered online do not contain information about current odometer readings, collision information, driver’s licence numbers, owner names or personal address information.
It says it contains:
Vehicle description
Plate number of current plate attached to the specified vehicle and all other previously attached plates
Date(s) the vehicle was registered to each registrant
Vehicle status
And even if I did I don't exactly want to lead a trail of breadcrumbs straight to a title floating operation.
Plus the whole thing is highly conspiratorial, like you talk about. Getting you to the bargaining table ie into the dealership. Then they work you, edmunds.com has an article about all the shitty little defeating tactics car dealerships do, at the direct verbal instructions of the dealership owner, and him directly under orders from the car companies.
Plus it's oil, American soldiers die every day for that oil in the Middle East, and many local people with them. It's no joke, in fact one time a military man I knew told me he just drove slower on the highway, like 30 mph under the limit, strictly because that oil is American blood, and you use much less driving slower to reach the same place. Like the lower speed limits of the 70's, but under his own volition.
In WW2, there was propaganda (not being negative, I don't consider it a negative thing, means words to be spread, spread the word) saying if you drive alone, you're driving with Hitler. Later, if you drive alone, you're driving with terrorists. There would be no war, at all, in the whole Middle East if it weren't about oil exploitation. That's the whole deal. Israel a little bit, but oil all the way. The Middle East had, up until I think 1947, including Iran, a very high opinion of America, blue jeans rock and roll, pizza, inventions, California, Cadillacs, what's not to love. Then came the Israeli War of Independence, then grossest of all the coup in Iran in 1953 which was just disgusting, and things changed very quickly.
We could dig it up in the US, we were a net exporter under the Trump administration. We just decided to dig it up a ocean away and use bunker fuel to bring it to us. Apparently for environmentalism, it's still unclear how that is better.
The numbers have to square up. That's critical. And the reasoning must be sound, no in-befores (inb4's) or soundbite explanations or silencing critics, in fact let the judge and jury decide for the most part, and if you are opposed, become a juror for the next time around.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/locat...
> “It’s really, really hard to assign even what side of the street you’re on when you’re using this kind of data,” said Paul Schmitt, a research scientist and professor at the University of Southern California.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/us/politics/2000-mules-tr...
> Mr. Phillips and Ms. Engelbrecht’s case is largely built on cellphone data. A report created by the group includes an appendix that claims to list “IMEI” numbers of the tracked devices — 15-digit codes unique to each cellphone. But each entry on the list is a 20-character string of numbers and letters followed by a lot of x’s. Mr. Phillips said new IDs had been created “to obfuscate the numbers.”
>"The same report says the group “purchased 25 terabytes of cellphone signal data emitted by devices” in the Milwaukee area in a two-week period before the 2020 election. They claim to have isolated 107 unique devices that made “20 or more visits to drop boxes” and “multiple visits to nongovernmental organizations” that were involved in get out the vote efforts.
>A number of researchers have said that while cellphone data is fairly precise, it cannot determine if someone is depositing ballots in a drop box or just passing by the area.
>“It’s really, really hard to assign even what side of the street you’re on when you’re using this kind of data,” said Paul Schmitt, a research scientist and professor at the University of Southern California.
It is easy to fuse with other sources.
Even so, a not-insignificant number of OS software is also a business strategy to buy B2B consulting services.
Science is stealing everyone's privacy and I stopped carrying a mobile years ago!
For example Visa has an exclusive deal with oracle. So only oracle can buy audiences with visa data, and visa has super strict requirements and only builds them in house. If you say “I want users who purchased x product” the size must be 5mm users minimum (I think) and visa models it up using lookalikes/etc to 20mm+ users (maybe slightly off on sizes). Then it’s like $4 cpm to use at a dsp. Brands/agencies etc have to go through oracle to get visa data.
I attended a presentation some years back from TMobiles marketing team.
According to the speaker, when you visit their homepage they pull up complete financial records on you, including how much your home mortgage is, if any, and use that to customize what products you see promoted first.
Matching a cookie to individual names is not instantaneous and would be very expensive for someone at t mobile’s scale to do every time a session started.
Some b2b companies do something similar where they can match your ip to a list of known corporate ips to find where you work in real-time, but that’s pretty expensive.
Here's one example - http://www.dev.kbmg.com/services-solutions/data/data-solutio...
I've seen this, and many other similar data sets. You can easily look up yourself, your friends, etc.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vzjb/location-data-abortio...
> SafeGraph calls the location data product “Patterns.” In total, the data cost just over $160. Not all Planned Parenthood locations offer abortion services. But Motherboard verified that some facilities included in the purchased dataset do.
> SafeGraph’s data is aggregated, meaning it isn’t explicitly specifying where a certain device moved to. Instead, it focuses on the movements of groups of devices. But researchers have repeatedly warned about the possibilities of unmasking individuals[0] contained in allegedly anonymized datasets.
And related to [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...
Also, when digging, the data is heavily skewed in favor of low income. This was instantly noticed by the difference in data available for budget brands and models compared to the pricier lots.
Also, gross.
If they know you're looking at other dealers, then yes, they might think they need to play harder. If they know you're looking at accessories for this new car, then they can think you're more ready to buy. Every bit of detail they can get, they will use.
Tim Horton's sells donuts, so I doubt comprehensive data about where you are wrt donut shops all year comes close to that value even 35 yrs later
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hortons
It's a 'fast food/coffee' chain that really was made popular by a recurring skit on a TV show called: Royal Canadian Air Farce (Sketch based usually heavy on the political satire)
The skit had 3 people sitting around a table drinking coffee and cracking jokes about current-events and mostly political fiascos. It was this lampooning of 'typical Canadian behaviour' of art imitating life that caused more people to show up and start hanging out at the corner coffee shop. In my small home town (40,000 people) there were maybe 3 shops (aka Timmies). During this boom to it's popularity that number increased by atleast 10. They made their doughnuts in-house every morning, and the coffee was tolerated as being acceptable.
As the franchise grew in popularity it became something of a joke and expectation that a person could find a Timmies on nearly every block, and you would never need to drive more then 10 minutes to get to the closest one.
Throughout it's financial hardships and ownership changes there has been a lot of complaints that "The coffee isn't as good as it used to be." And rumours that McDonalds (with it's McCafee push) bought Timmies old supplier of beans.
Now the food is no longer made in store, and my impression is that the coffee is worse. There have been other cost-cutting measures like making the popular contest "Roll up the Rim" (where a person could unroll the lip of the cup of coffee to reveal a prize from free confections, to money and a car); becoming an APP-only prize (more like a lottery style jackpot then a winning cup).
In total, I am not surprised. Their quality has gone downhill, and the treatment of staff is horrendous.
Once enough negative associations form with the brand, it'll be the work of a generation to turn things around. Tracking user locations probably won't have a huge impact. Most people just don't care enough about privacy issues.
Tim Horton's real problem is that they are becoming known for bad coffee, bad donuts, and bad food, while similarly ubiquitous chains, like McDonalds, now have decent coffee and have added donuts to their menus. If I have to choose between a McDonalds burger and a microwaved chicken-finger with a shelf-stabilized tortilla wrapped around it from Tim Horton's, the choice is easy. Practically every truck-stop town that has a Tim Horton's also has a McDonald's very close by, so it really is just market inertia propping Tim Horton's up at this point.
Apparently before Wendy's bought them out (mid-90s) that was true, but I'm too young to remember. It certainly hasn't been true since that time. Even co-founder Ron Joyce lamented at the time about how the quality was decimated under their ownership.
> Tim Horton's real problem is that they are becoming known for bad coffee, bad donuts, and bad food
Tim Hortons' problem is that Tim Horton's daughter, who is a Tim Hortons franchisee, made some negative comments towards minimum wage workers which was mistaken to have come from Tim Hortons corporate.
The bad coffee, food, and donuts isn't anything new. They moved to the par-baked donuts in 2003 (a part of the same Wendy's push for cheapness). People were willing to overlook the bad quality for decades because they felt they were supporting an upstanding Canadian business. The aforementioned comments changed minds about that.
It used to be better. Or more accurately other chains used to have worse coffee.
Back when it was getting established its competitors (eg Country Style Donuts) focussed more on the donuts than coffee.
Tim Hortons made it's name on brewing fresh coffee carafes every 20 minutes. The standard at the time for other shops was to brew a large coffee urn in before the rush in the morning and let it sit all day.
Walk in for a coffee at 5 am and you might get the dredges of yesterdays brew.
So if you're on a long drive and need a cup of coffee at an odd hour, Tim Hortons was a good bet. Also if you were driving to hockey practice early in the morning. Or an early worker.
Is it a great choice now? Not really, but if you're driving it's still consistent and open late.
I often wonder why it's so loved by small-town Canadians when it's done us no favours. Especially since it hasn't actually been a Canadian company for 30 years.
Side note - on a trip to Corke, Ireland I was taken to a Tim Hortons by my hosts to make me feel at home!
[0] https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/01/12/time-for-the-tim...
The unfortunate problem for Tim Horton's in Canada is that going to McDonalds (of all places) is better in every single way- their basic coffee is miles ahead in quality, their cups and lids are better, and their food is too.
Sadly, their coffee in the US is absolutely atrocious, to the point where I'm not convinced it even qualifies as "coffee".
The black coffee is okay and they have those mango smoothies that are pretty good.
I prefer it to starbucks.
I typically make my own coffee but if I'm looking for a drip coffee and I'm out, I got to McDonalds.
A friend of mine in Costa Rica knows Starbucks has a pretty funny trick to say they have coffee from there (Higher altitude begets better coffee). They actually just ship it in these big bags with the 'hecho en mexico' eagle on them and then re-bag it in Costa Rica. It's incredibly non-sustainable.
(Relatively) larger city in Saskatchewan. Not downtown either!
Sooo they could track exactly where their customers were going?
Heck, even McDonald's makes better coffee.
The flip side of this, is why would I ever install a Tim Hortons app, why do I think they are offering an app, and what possible meaningful benefit (even assuming I went there regularly) would I drive from having an app?
It can also be helpful if you show up and there's a long lineup. Mobile orders get pushed to the front of the line, so instead of waiting in line you can place a mobile order and go grab it right away. I feel a bit guilty doing that though.
Interesting, so customers pay for queue priority with their location data. Except the problem is it's not a fully consentual agreement, customers aren't explicitly aware of the arrangement.
My apathetic side says we're entering a world where it's so inconvenient to have privacy that we'll probably not bother.
For me, the only options are "Allow only while using the app", "Ask every time", and "Don't allow". Background tracking isn't even an option.
They also switched Roll Up the rim to REQUIRE the app if you want to roll (2? 3 years ago?) - I hope a successful lawsuit comes out of that given this privacy ruling.. a lot of people were forced to install the app just so they could collect an occasional free coffee/doughnut. If they did that last minute at the counter they wouldn't even have read the permissions (a similar argument to that which renders many EULA invalid in Canada).
They weren't forced. No one held a gun to their head. They willingly traded their privacy for a donut.
Do we need... App neutrality laws? Ha
The website didn't really suffice because the UX was bad, and wrestling with it got tiring. Apple+Google's hours were never quite correct.
I look forward to the day when we've reverted back to simple web-based interfaces and most of the general public says "install an app? yeah, right" because they've learned not to trust that shit.
I also keep location turned off unless I am actively navigating in Google Maps. I know that doesn't eliminate all tracking but it's an easy thing to do.
On the flip side, people install the app because they usually are how the rewards programs are implemented now.
From the app page:
Mobile Order & Pay
Select and customize your favourite food and drinks, choose your preferred Tim Hortons location, and pay from the app. It’s now that easy to order your favourite Tim Hortons items from your phone.
Personalized Menu
Add recently ordered items with one tap. Customized orders are saved on your menu so you can get your order just the way you like it.
Tims® Rewards
After just seven eligible purchases, receive your choice of a FREE coffee, tea or baked good. Keep checking for more special offers to come. It’s time to reward your routine!
Scan for Tims® Rewards
A digital version of your loyalty card that you can scan easily when ordering in the restaurant – never miss an opportunity to earn rewards.
Scan to Pay
Save time and pay for your order right from the app -- no need to carry cash or a credit card!
Take Out, Dine In or Drive Thru
Choose your pick-up method. Payment is completed in-app, so you can grab your order to go, or dine in with us. Your choice.
For the rest of it, it's just a meaningless distraction to me. I have enough going on without caring about tracking coffee rewards, or managing yet another payment method. I just don't find they make my life easier, and they take time and focus, plus nudge me to buy stuff I don't need or load money onto cards or whatever. I have frequent flyer memberships for the perks, but otherwise I've always found loyalty cards to be a gimmick, even more so when they want me to install a data harvesting app.
(You can deny the Location permission prompt if that bothers you. You don't even need the app to collect points, just register once and delete it, but you do need to manually "activate" offers that are then linked to your card.)
Sell it to others, though? No way. Why would they give away their valuable advantage? It's very much in their interest to stop anybody else from getting that information, and I trust them to be self-interested.
All of the fast food restaurants now offer "deals" and/or points only available through the app. Tims popular game "Roll up the Rim to Win" used to be printed on the cups, and is now only available through the app.
I wouldn't install them anyways, but lots of people have no idea how compromising these applications are to their privacy, and wouldn't infer the amount of information collected even if they read the privacy policy.
These sorts of spying applications should just be banned.
Nothing will change due to this investigation, and I doubt Tims will be fined any amount that would actually stop them from doing it, and no one will go to jail.
Discounts, freebees, coupons, loyalty club benefits and other financial incentives, usually. Pretty much the only reason you want it, because all these kinds of things usually do otherwise is nag you that you're near one of their locations.
The Tim Hortons app doesn't do this. I don't think it sends any notifications at all, at least I've never gotten one and I haven't disabled notifications.
Practically speaking, unless you disable location tagging in pictures, any app with media access can track your coarse location history, depending on how many pictures you tend to take throughout the week.
Friend can drag a box around any area down to the block and see how many people visit that area, what part of the city they came from to get there, where they went to next, average income, etc etc etc
We all know we are being tracked but seeing him use his software was still shocking. Apparently all data is from 3rd party apps and they charge $30k++ for their real estate analysis service. Who knows how much they pay for the actual data or how many times over it’s sold. It’s all anonymous but adding just a small bit of information about an individual and pretty easy to figure out and track them even off this anonymized 3rd party data.
Scary hours
I’d be really interested to see how much my phone leaks to services like this vs the average phone. I bet it’s still a shockingly large amount.
That said, doesn’t iOS notify you when an app wants to use location services? Did all of these users just opt into that? That seems crazy, if so.
Not so crazy.
Local news, weather, and similar apps with a reasonable rationale for Location Services access are often the culprits.
They will put phrases like “See privacy policy.” in the justification text (When asking permission) so they can claim that the user consented.
There should be huge (multi millions) fines and probably even jail time for the execs who approved / managed this app, but as per usual our corporate overlords get off with a "Stern warning" and a promise not to do it again.
Essentially, both Android and iOS apps were collecting data. Also interesting to note, that Ontario accounted for 54% of purchases in May 2020, of people that used this app. I wonder how close it to actual sales.
Full disclosure, I just used this app today in Ottawa. Doh!
That demographic prefers Starbucks, and more likely some hip 3rd wave place over timmies.
Are you sure? Tim’s is always full of blue collar guys and old people whenever I go in. Starbucks is for yuppies.
Insane that there isn't any more forceful enforcement for "a violation of the law" than setting out "recommendations" and trusting that the guys under investigation for "violation" of the, presumably, privacy "law" will implement it.
Talk to me about "strong messages" when CEOs are sent to prison and a company's assets are seized.
Revoke their license retroactively to when they started doing this to consumers.
Charge them for all individual incidents at maximum allocation per law.
Allow the option of reduced fees per incident based on how quickly the business responds.
Hold a minimum value per incident that you do not go under.
Increase their tax responsibility by 15% for the next 5 years.
+1
I love capitalism, but the fact that laws are so meek towards companies is a flaw of our implementation of it.
Also, there's no way that every other fast food app isn't doing the exact same thing. There's no way that mcdonald's is going to give me a free big mac just for having the app installed if they aren't collecting as much data as they can access on my device.
>You'd need a lawsuit for that
Can you elaborate? Is there Canadian privacy law being violated here that doesn't stipulate any penalty other than exposing Tim Hortons to private lawsuits? Forgive the directness of my question, your comment reads like you'd know.
edit: reading the Report of Findings [0] on the page itself suggests that because the violations ceased once, er, the violating entity had been informed of the investigation and had suggested that it'd delete the harvested data, the joint investigation "therefore found this matter to be well-founded and conditionally resolved". So, nobody really cares
[0] https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions-and-decisions/investig...
Since then I’ve travelled a fair bit in US cities and a little in Canada and the only real difference I can see is that Canada has a Tim Hortons on the corner.
> Since then I’ve travelled a fair bit in US cities and a little in Canada and the only real difference I can see is that Canada has a Tim Hortons on the corner.
Depends where you go. There's probably more of a different cultural feel in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. e.g. Café Olimpico is a Montreal institution that feels quintessentially Montreal. (And the US has places with very different cultural feels to each other - of places I've visited, Honolulu isn't very similar to Billings - but I'm less familiar with the US than Canada.)
I hear a lot of people say this, but I see no difference between BK Tim Hortons and Wendy's Tim Hortons in the years before.
Technically, I believe they still bake things, but they certainly don't prepare the doughnuts from scratch on-site anymore. Indeed, quality declined spectacularly when their slogan changed from "Doughnuts" to "Always Fresh".
>The Tim Hortons app asked for permission to access the mobile device’s geolocation functions, but misled many users to believe information would only be accessed when the app was in use. In reality, the app tracked users as long as the device was on, continually collecting their location data.
Does this mean that the prompt is completely useless?
“we aren’t scum bags, we promise, and we’re about to ask for access to your location data, but we’ll only use it to help you find stores and cool stuff like that!”
And then they invoked the system permissions dialog that allows the user to grant location access, but instead of only asking for permission to access user data when the app is open, they told iOS to ask the user if they could always have access to location data. This is clearly a different prompt, but I’m almost certain most users either aren’t able to discern the difference, don’t know the consequences or think it’s normal.
Tbh, there are very few situations I can think of where I’d want to let an app always have access to my location. I just checked my iOS location privacy settings, and other than system services, the only app that always has access to my location is weather (but I could probably turn that off).
I wonder if apple’s app review team closely scrutinize any app that asks for always on location data? I couldn’t find any that had an option for ‘alway” on my phone other than Uber.
It's been a while since I used CoreLocation but I do not think this is possible.
To request Always location permissions iOS apps _must_ first request When In Use location permission.
Only then, after the user grants Allow While Open (not Allow Once), and iOS starts delivering location updates to the app, will the iOS system give a _second_ prompt to the user requesting Always permission.
There's no way to jump straight to the Always permission AFAIK.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/clloc...
> If your app’s current state is CLAuthorizationStatus.notDetermined (the default) and you call requestAlwaysAuthorization(), Core Location uses two prompts before it fully enables Always authorization.
> The first prompt displays immediately with the string from NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription.
> The second prompt displays when Core Location prepares to deliver an event to your app requiring CLAuthorizationStatus.authorizedAlways. If the app is in the Provisional Always state, the system displays the second prompt with the string from NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription. Core Location will typically display the second prompt when your app isn’t running.
I suspect it's the difference between an app's prompt and the OS's prompt.
How does this work on an iPhone? If in Location Services and I have app set as "While Using the App", I'm assuming it's not possible for Tim Horton's app to collect data "as long as devices was on". Did it somehow bypass these settings?
Tim Hortons was doing this back prior to 2020 when Google started requiring approval.
For an instant, I thought the OP might be a link to a fake story in The Onion.
I mean, it wouldn't be out of place there: "Fast-food chains collecting vast amounts of location data."
And yet, no one is shocked.
That difference in results between giant corporations and individuals should give you a strong clue about who the “justice” system works for.
It's not just the justice system either. It's also representation in government. We have research showing that the average citizen has effectively zero influence on public policy and that our government caters exclusively to corporations and a small number of extremely wealthy individuals. The only time the rest of us get something we something we want is when our interests just happen to align with the interests of the powerful. (see https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...)
Every granted app permission should have the ability for the user of the device to revoke that permission.
The app from the article was collecting the data up until 2020, when Google launched this new app approval process.
All of these apps are not entitled to collect accurate data.
I think there is an app on f-droid that does this.
>The investigation concluded that Tim Hortons’ continual and vast collection of location information was not proportional to the benefits Tim Hortons may have hoped to gain from better targeted promotion of its coffee and other products.
So it's obviously ok for a business to collect information. This includes information _legally_ collected from customers' phones (I'm sure everybody just clicks OK agreeing to the terms when installing the app). So what's the issue? That the amount is "vast"? That it's "continuous"? That it's "not proportional to the benefits"? Who decides what's vast and what's not, what's proportional and what's not? I'm really not getting what they're being accused of doing. They got a lot of data and had no clue what to do with it (missed opportunity if you ask me), is that a crime now?
Also the operating systems. You get a new Android phone, Google Maps randomly comes up and tells you "Hey you're at this location, want to do this check-in bullshit?" even though it wasn't previously open. And yet, the app list button only shows a few things that have viewable windows, no easy way to see every background task that's running adn presumably spying on you. It's designed like this deliberately.
The people who conducted the investigation - the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Wow. No fines. No consequences. Is Canada's privacy law really so toothless?
Is that the standard for privacy these days in Canada? It would have been OK if the benefits to the business were proportional?
Reading their terms to cancel your subscription to the virtual coupons for dollars spent (aka Canadian Tire money) you need call their phone support line. No web-based cancellation but you can sign up for it using their web-based service.
I think Tim Hortons should be required to analyze and publish the data from questions supplied by the public.
What is the likelihood that I will have to visit a bathroom within X minutes after consuming a Tim Hortons? Visit a hospital? Get in a car crash?
What percentage of Tim Hortons customers also visit strip clubs?
What is the average waiting time in line for a TH visitor?
Thoughts?
They only want your data. Fuck your business. Fuck the food. It's all about your data.
Why is this even technically possible? The iPhone app permissions settings has three modes: “always”, “when in use”, and “off”. I assume the second setting only allows the app to collect data when the app is actually in use?
Does Android not distinguish between “always” and “when in use”?
1) I’m assuming that’s not the scope Tim hortons asked for with their permission dialog (they lied about it, sure, by saying they would only use your location when you were using the app, but they presented the user with a prompt that granted them unfettered access). I’m guessing most users didn’t even notice, or aren’t aware of the consequences.
2) they relied on some sketchy third party company called “radar,” and I’m sure they also use heuristics beyond location data to figure out where the users are.
I’d love to know if the changes apple made with iOS 14.5 would have made this more difficult?
Anyway, this is disgusting and I wish there were serious, unavoidable repercussions.
(Disclosure: I only skimmed the actual report, I didn’t read the whole thing)
Just because you have a useful app doesn't mean you have to sell the user's location data to make money, ESPECIALLY if you are ALREADY making money with the app.
all of this can be done in a web app, including the payment (apple pay).
There is currently a film making the rounds in right wing/election-interested circles called 2000 Mules.
In the film, the narrator/host purport to have purchased several trillions of points of tracing data from the time around the 2020 election, and claim to have identified "ballot mules", that is: people who appeared to be going from various Democrat affiliated non-profits to many different ballot boxes in their city.
The conclusion being: these people were stuffing ballot boxes.
However, the "technical" take downs of these claims are that this location data is not accurate enough to support them.
But then articles like this come out, or many of the comments below, which do support the idea that you could purchase highly accurate GPS tracking data of "anonymized" cell phone users.
It's just interesting how the technical analysis on these things seems to change so dramatically based on what the context is.
With the increasing push to have government apps installed (for example ArriveCan) and the new bill where they want to search your phone at the border. You don't know how soon making fun of Trudeau on social media, or questioning covid rules will become a crime.
USER_ENTERED_HOME; USER_EXITED_HOME;
USER_ENTERED_OFFICE; USER_EXITED_OFFICE;
USER_STARTED_TRAVELING; USER_STOPPED_TRAVELING; and
USER_ENTERED_GEOFENCE; USER_EXITED_GEOFENCE.
You can get IMEI and many other identifiers. It's trivially to translate that to a person by geofencing their house.
Plenty of recent articles about people going to abortion clinics and getting doxxed over it.
https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions-and-decisions/investig...
The report is about the app before September 2020.
I believe location permission controls have improved on both operating systems since then.
> Once a User granted the App permission to access their device’s native location functionality (based on GPS), the SDK began, based on TDL’s configuration of the App and subject to certain limitations outlined in further detail in paragraph 26, collecting the User’s granular location data (“Radar Location Data”), including precise longitude and latitude coordinates, and forwarding that information to Radar’s servers to be processed for Tim Hortons – thereby tracking the User’s device location
have never used radar sdk, wonder if this is the default config or it has to be enabled
I remember a time when app developers weren't the user's enemy, but that was a long time ago.
But the setting is there.
https://financialpost.com/technology/tim-hortons-app-trackin...
There is the above privacy investigation but also a bunch of class action lawsuits filed in multiple provinces.
I know that might be at odds with many on HN's opinions, but government/regulatory protection for consumers has a place.
Apps should not be allowed to collect data on you without your consent. And, they should not be able to just claim they need everything; without a legitimate need you should be able to opt out of tracking like the OP. And finally, the fines should have teeth so that offenders are actually incentivized to avoid infringing, instead of getting a slap on the wrist and profiting from violations.
Seems if so they could have to pay a hefty fine thanks to GDPR...
yikes
Canadian here. Sorry, sending a sternly worded message to law breakers isn't enough.
> " The good news in this case is that Tim Hortons has agreed to follow the recommendations we set out,"
No. GOOD news in such a case isn't an agreement to follow the law in the future. Didn't they already do that and then break the law?!
Good news in such a case might be, oh let me think ... a temporary loss of business license for violation of laws and customer trust, and then fines (or revenue loss due to license suspension) of a magnitude that shareholders or the parent company feel which can then inform the board, executive responsibility, policy decisions right down the chain, etc.
This is law-breaking for profit.