India's request for satellite-aided iPhone location data is a privacy nightmare

appleinsider.com

14 points·walterbell··4 comments

Must we do this dance every week now? Every other week some country in the world is trying to erode privacy.

This will also not pass and will be withdrawn quietly like that last one they tried.

This request seems to have preceded the stalker app of last week.

> Must we do this dance every week now?

I think that's the point: they'll keep pushing for these things, until the public is fatigued and no longer cares to push back; at which point they'll get them through.

It’s a reminder not to take for granted the concept of privacy rights that do exist nor confuse it for a societal default.

So yeah it’s shit they are requesting that, but I take issue with author conflating A-GPS with something it isn’t.

> By enabling A-GPS, the locations would be narrowed down from a radius of several meters to a far more accurate level.

This is NOT what A-GPS does, the author has no idea what the hell he’s talking about here. A-GPS uses ephemeris data fetched from a server to decrease the time to first fix. If the phone doesn’t do this it relies on tracking satellites and waiting for the same information to download over a much longer time.

What they are describing is more like fusedlocationprovider where android mixes in wifi timing information with the multiple GNSS systems to increase the accuracy. Neither case are specifically tracking, the gov want software instead to send coordinates back to them somehow (a tracking app/api would do this).

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