Apple and Apps that Spy
Apple released iOS 9 this week and it will serve as the new operating system for iPhones and iPads. Beta-testers had already confirmed this edition will include upgrades to ‘Siri,’ better multi-tasking, and will require a smaller amount of space to download and run. But a lot of attention has been paid to the upgrades being made in regards to privacy—and some of the revelations about what was previously thought to be private—but wasn’t.
Tim Cook addressed the masses in San Francisco at the 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference. Mr. Cook reiterated Apple’s commitment to keeping private information private, and followed up with an open letter on the Apple website.
Seems that, even though it was not Apple’s intent, there has been some spying going on. Apps were allowed to be built with the ability to scan other apps installed in your iPhone. The theory was that this would allow apps to work better with each other, but the reality was companies like Facebook and Twitter could collect information and better target consumer ads.
Apple’s new iOS 9 has supposedly plugged that hole. They’ve also made a pledge not to sell any information related to your account to anyone. This underlines the message of real importance: everyone knows data is valuable, but not everyone understands just how valuable, and the lengths that companies will go to collect it.
Appthority, a mobile app risk management and data security company, analyzed 400 popular apps for mobile devices—both Android and Apple. At this point, it’s likely no surprise that they found the overwhelming majority collected personal data. This data collected ranged from details about location, contacts, calendar dates, even unique identifying numbers from the device itself—unique and easy to tie to a specific user.
Big Data is Big Business
It’s not just mobile devices and apps that want your data, though these devices have made it easier to collect these days. Adam Tanner’s book What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data—Lifeblood of Big Business—and the End of Privacy as We Know It traces the use of big data both inside and far away from Las Vegas to track consumer behavior and increase profitability. Analyzing the rise of Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman from data wonk at the Harvard Business School to head of a gambling empire is a fascinating story. But the amount of more mundane data collection and how it is used by all kinds of businesses is even more telling.
Your Data—How Valuable is it?
Setting personal data and its value aside for a moment, think about your business. What about the data that your business has? How long did it take you to collect all the information you have about your customers, or to build the records that you have?
How valuable is your data? Is it secure? What would happen if it were gone?
Protect Your Data
5i Solutions offers customized methods of document management, easily locating the exact document you need every day—as well as records management, safely storing data as a record for easy retrieval. Paper, emails, files and folders from network drives—all turned into easily searchable meta data– then safely stored in our Cloud Vault, with encryption, network security, key management—total access control.
Big data is big business. But your data is your business—and that’s huge.
5i Solutions. One single, secure point of intake, access, and storage. One singular solution.
5i Solutions, Inc.
