Facebook mobile app 'to track user even when phone not being used'!

[karl]

The location app is designed to allow Facebook users to find friends in the area and will run even if the program isn’t open on a user’s handset.
Facebook already has a mobile “Find Friends” app, which allows users to let others know where they are by “checking in” at a bar, a library etc.
The new app is bound to raise privacy concerns as once it is activated it will continuously track the user’s movements.
The app - set to be launch in mid-March according to the Bloomberg report - could then prove useful to the social networking site in the way they target advertising based on the places their users visit.
Facebook has declined to comment on the report, which cites two unnamed sources.


Full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9850472/Facebook-mobile-app-to-track-user-even-when-phone-not-being-used.html

[Gandalf]

The location app is designed to allow Facebook users to find friends in the area and will run even if the program isn’t open on a user’s handset.
Facebook already has a mobile “Find Friends” app, which allows users to let others know where they are by “checking in” at a bar, a library etc.
The new app is bound to raise privacy concerns as once it is activated it will continuously track the user’s movements.
The app - set to be launch in mid-March according to the Bloomberg report - could then prove useful to the social networking site in the way they target advertising based on the places their users visit.
Facebook has declined to comment on the report, which cites two unnamed sources.


Full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9850472/Facebook-mobile-app-to-track-user-even-when-phone-not-being-used.html

I see the security flaws, and must admit that it worries me, hopefully having not updated Facebook due to the new versions being so terribly poor they won't be able to put the software on my android...

Thanks for sharing.

[Infidelitas]

This is why I always have my location sensor turned off...

[Breakeven]

This is why I always have my location sensor turned off...

i should do that ^ :3

[Infidelitas]

i should do that ^ :3
I never have any need to turn it on. It only uses more battery and opens you up to things like this.

[stev]

Once Facebook does that ill delete it off my phone facebook is not my mother so I don't see why it needs to know where I am all the time....Gosh the internet is now just becoming a stalker x girlfriend.

[project_icarus]

Erm. The most I'll ever do on my phone, is use the Symbian browser to make a Facebook status, check in, or maybe comment. With my iPod, it seems to have always been able to say "Sent from Caversham, Western Australia" (barely accurate) when location services were turned on... So... No Facebook app for my phone!

[MisterSix]

Well its not like you are forced to get that app'

[TheMatrix]

I see the security flaws, and must admit that it worries me, hopefully having not updated Facebook due to the new versions being so terribly poor they won't be able to put the software on my android...
Oh, if only, right?
Facebook, as well as many non-free applications have little backdoors that allow their masters(not you as an end-user, anyways) to remotely change your software. You don't even have to notice it, which, in many cases, you don't.

This is why I always have my location sensor turned off...
Do you really believe it's actually off?