Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> I've seen the "[app] is actively using your location" message in the statusbar

Sure, but that's intentional and incredibly obvious in the status bar. It tracks your location between when you place an order and when you're close to the restaurant so that you can confirm for them to start the order.

It's not like it keeps tracking you for hours or days afterwards or anything. Same as Uber -- it turns off after your ride is done. The status bar message disappears.

Point is, the app doesn't seem designed to harvest location data. If you pick up an order at the restaurant, they know you were there anyways. Your phone isn't telling them something they don't already know.

View on HN

It does actually. The McDonalds app "accidentally" forgets to check when you've picked up your order and keeps tracking you until you go into the app, then it'll check and realize you picked it up and stop tracking you.

Sounds like a bug? It doesn't do that on my phone.

Especially since the blue status bar is so obvious. Nobody wants that sticking around on their screen.

Having location data on can potentially implicate you in a crime.

It can also be used as an alibi, so if you go kill your ex wife, make sure you have location tracking turned on, and give your phone to someone else to be in another place.

Not a lawyer, but my estimate is that this would stand up in approximately zero courts worldwide

It has been presented as evidence (e.g., https://corrcronin.com/2023/05/never-off-the-grid-how-to-fin...)

All of those examples are of LE claiming that somebody was at a given location, not a defendant using it to prove they were somewhere else.

What's the difference? One is somewhat difficult to fake, the other is laughably easy.

Not saying it hasn't been attempted somewhere, I'm saying it would be a very weak prosecutor who couldn't cast doubt on it as a piece of "proof"

The proof obligation is (correctly) vastly higher in one direction than the other in a US criminal trial.

A defendant using it to create reasonable doubt is a win for the defense. A prosecutor who is only able to cast doubt on it is not a win for the prosecution.

It's evidence. What it means is up to interpretation, but I doubt it would be blocked entirely. It would be up to the prosecutor to challenge the assumption that you and your phone are in the same place, or that there was some other flaw in the data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com