Yesterday morning, Gregg and I were at breakfast and my phone’s gps notification was spinning.  I thought I’d left my sports tracker on – which tells me how far I’ve walked and how fast my walking pace is.  So, I hit the little signal doolie and it pulled up that Facebook was establishing my position.

I thought that was odd, so I hit the Facebook picture on the notification thinking it would take me to an option to turn off GPS tracking for the Facebook Ap.

Instead, it took me to a list of things to which, by having the Facebook ap on my phone, Facebook gets unlimited access. And, apparently this is new (I found this article this morning.)

Things like text messages (and it had a disclaimer that said, “Regardless of confidentiality”), my entire address book, my pictures, my GPS location, etc. It also has the ability to prevent my phone from going to sleep, sending text messages on my behalf, and interfering with my calendar.

I mentioned it to Gregg and he said, “Remove the ap”

My husband’s occupation is in information assurance – meaning, his job is to protect the digital information for a Fortune 100 company.  He understands implicatons of privacy in the context of cyber crime. He also understands that it would take the right person with the right access to write the right code and all of my information is readily available to them.

Including my home address and, via GPS, how far away from that address I may be at the moment.

For your own safety and protection, DO NOT allow applications you install on your phone that kind of access.

Check out infraguard.org more more information.

Hallee

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