On Monday the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that police violated the 4th amendment when they placed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days. In his opinion on the case, Justice Anthony Scalia wrote that the use of GPS constituted a "search" and therefore requires a warrant. This ruling may have an impact on other cases where GPS was used, as well as other types of surveillance mechanisms.
Two computer programmers presented findings showing that your iPhone and iPad is recording your locations in a hidden file. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center explains how the devices track your location and why this is a breach of privacy. The issue, he says, is partially the fact that you are being tracked, but also that the file is being saved. This points to a larger privacy problem whereby users don't have a choice as to whether they can be tracked.