Less than two weeks ago, documents revealed that the government has been able to access data through your iPhone, including texts, calls and location.
Now privacy advocates are warning people about a new iPhone app called iBeacon, which allows malls, museums and stadiums to identify people and track their movements, Yahoo! Finance reported.
Included in Apple's latest iOS upgrade, iBeacon can track people with eerie accuracy, reportedly letting a store pop up coupon offers for Coca-Cola on phones when customers pass the soda aisle.
iBeacon, which lets a store track and record a customer's movements, is only the latest in a string of smartphone controversies related to privacy.
In 2011, iPhone consumers found out that their phones were tracking their movements and recording them in an unencrypted list, according to Yahoo. The Nordstrom department store chain was also caught red-handed when shoppers learned last year that it had been secretly following shoppers' smartphones through wireless in 17 locations.
Fortunately for iPhone users, the iBeacon app is completely optional and has to be physically downloaded onto a phone. Only Apple's app store and one company called InMarket have announced that they will use the feature to track shoppers.
One concern is that people who download the app won't realize the danger.
"The scope and the risks and the sharing that takes place now is so far beyond the disclosures consumers typically see," Fordham University law professor Joel Reidenberg told Yahoo. "They're not in a position to really know."
The majority of people are unlikely to read the fine print in privacy policies, and data is frequently sold to third parties.
"Without knowing where the data is flowing and what is going to happen with it, consumers can't make good decisions," said Jennifer Urban, co-director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley Law School, as quoted by Yahoo.
See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?
