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Comment by stewx | Hacker News Reader

The Tim Hortons mobile app in Canada did this very thing: monitoring your GPS location 24/7, and logging special events when you entered a competitor's store, like Starbucks.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/investigation-finds-tim-h...

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The proposed settlement is absolutely insulting too. A coffee and donut: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tim-hortons-app-1.6536175

Should at least have been a Starbucks coffee

And a Krispy Kreme or a Dunkin. Tim Horton's donuts suck donkey nards

This article has more details of what they did and the little tap on the wrist our privacy commission gave them over it: https://globalnews.ca/news/8884583/tim-hortons-app-privacy-c...

correct me if i'm wrong but won't your phone prompt you to explicitly allow access to a service when the app requests it? When the Tim Hortons app asks to use your location can't you Just Say No? ...or at most allow once.

> When the Tim Hortons app asks to use your location can't you Just Say No? ...or at most allow once.

Let us know when you're in the drive through! Just say yes to this prompt.

[location prompt]

===

I've actually been curious about this for a bit, I need to dig in to some apps to see what they're doing. I've noticed, for example, the Chick-Fil-A app does that prompt, and then continues monitoring your location even after you've gotten your order and aren't near the restaurant anymore.

That why iOS has a lot of fine grain control now as well as prompts after the fact letting you know how many times the app has accessed your location, and check if you still want it to have it.

CFA app loads a bunch of rather fucked up surveillance SDKs under the guise of anti coupon fraud or something. Probably related to that.

there should be a "for 30 minutes" button. background is ok so i can so other things.. but only while I'm waiting for my order or something.

That's not the point, though. When people allow location permissions they would assume it's to help with ordering, not to track your position 24 hours a day. It's a violation of customers' trust.

totally agree but I think a quick fix could be to go through your list of apps and deny location services to all of them. Then, as you use them, selectively enable location services on an app by app basis taking trust into consideration. Granted, you're still trusting the operating system to be honest here and actually deny location services.

> "We've strengthened our internal team that's dedicated to enhancing best practices when it comes to privacy and we’re continuing to focus on ensuring that guests can make informed decisions about their data when using our app,"

This almost annoys me more than the original intent. They could at least own their actions instead of treating everyone like a moron.

Just went to check my apps and Instagram had given itself GPS access.... That's reassuring...

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