Comment by 8_hours_ago

8 years ago

I believe the relevant T-Mobile privacy policy (that I definitely read before signing up...) is:

"With your consent. We may provide location-based services or provide third parties with access to your approximate location to provide services to you." https://www.t-mobile.com/company/website/privacypolicy.aspx

That is why a text message confirmation is required to get a cell phone's location from https://www.locationsmart.com/try/

For those on T-Mobile, there are privacy settings that can be adjusted here: https://my.t-mobile.com/profile/privacy_notifications/advert... I already had all of them disabled, and I was still able to get the location of my cell phone from LocationSmart.

I chatted with T-Mobile support yesterday to see if I could opt-out of them sharing my data. Not surprisingly, the support agent was less than helpful. "Don't worry, your data is secured"

Are there any US carriers that respect privacy and do not share private information with 3rd parties? Or is that a pipe dream?

18 comments

8_hours_ago

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aarongray  8 years ago

I think the ACLU did a report a while back and Cricket Wireless was the best largeish cell phone provider.

Provider comparison: https://privacysos.org/blog/how-long-does-my-phone-company-s...

Study details: https://privacysos.org/blog/att-stores-either-five-or-twenty...

  • 8_hours_ago  8 years ago

    Cricket's Privacy Policy looks much better than T-Mobile's or Google Fi's:

    "We will not sell your personal information to anyone, for any purpose. Period." https://www.cricketwireless.com/privacy

    But they also say that they may share personal information (which may include location??) to 3rd parties with user "consent":

    "Do you share my Personal Information with other companies for them to market to me?

    We may share your Personal Information with AT&T and other AT&T affiliates for a variety of purpose, including so that they can market products and services to you. Except for AT&T and other AT&T affiliates, we will not share your Personal Information with other companies for them to use for the marketing of their own products and services without your consent."

    Can someone with Cricket Wireless see if LocationSmart has access to their location https://www.locationsmart.com/try/ ?

13of40  8 years ago

Did T-Mobile have a breach recently? I got malware on one of my machines a year or so back and had to change my passwords everywhere, and T-Mobile was one of the two sites that was so assed-up I couldn't actually change it. I clicked your privacy link earlier and had to go through two separate SMS verifications and change my password because they said it was "old".

mohaine  8 years ago

Well, the locationsmart fails completely on my Google fi phone.

  • 8_hours_ago  8 years ago

    Switching from T-Mobile to Google Fi might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire ;)

    The Google Fi Terms of Service says they are collecting location data:

    "When your device is turned on or when you use the Services, we may collect and process information about your actual location. This may include information about your current activity (e.g., driving, running, walking, etc.), which lets us know when you may be moving between different mobile and Wi-Fi networks." https://fi.google.com/about/tos/#project-fi-privacy-notice

    I'm okay with Google collecting location information, insofar as they only use it to provide cell service, and not for advertising and don't provide it to 3rd parties. Unfortunately, their Privacy Policy states that they can use it for advertising:

    "We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads ." https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=us#infouse

    And they can provide it to 3rd parties. Note that they require "consent", just like T-Mobile's privacy policy:

    "We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so." https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=us#nosharing

    So even if they are not currently providing information to LocationSmart, according to my understanding of their privacy policy, they are able to.

  • dylz  8 years ago

    Are you using your Google Voice number? Fi numbers are GV and in cloud.

    Somewhere in your sim/about under settings you can find your underlying phone numbers for Sprint/TMO that you can look up.

    • 8_hours_ago  8 years ago

      I would be interested to know about that... I don't see anything mentioned in the Project Fi Terms of Service (https://fi.google.com/about/tos/) about Sprint, T-Mobile, or US Cellular. I assume that by signing up with Fi you are also subject to each of their privacy policies, but I'd be happy to be corrected!

      1 reply →

  • mohaine  8 years ago

    Well, now it works on my phone as well. I wonder if it is only when on/near my work campus. I was outside but they do have some repeaters for some carriers. (I often get a message saying my carrier has "disabled voice services" when on campus)

  • drbawb  8 years ago

    ... well now I'm wondering if I should have stuck w/ my Pixel + Fi instead of the S9 + T-Mobile plan I signed up for today. Whoops.