Man claims the Palm Pre monitors his every move

A programmer claims to have discovered evidence that the Palm Pre smartphone reports its whereabouts to Palm — without its owner’s knowledge. WebOS (the Pre’s operating system) developer Joey Hess made the claim after gaining low-level ‘root’ access to his handset using freely available tools.

Once able to access the operating system log files (files that are normally hidden from the user), he was able to see that GPS location data is sent to Palm on a daily basis — the same location data that’s reported using the Pre’s built-in map application. As Hess says: “Not very accurate in this case, but I've seen it be accurate enough to find my house before.”

The Pre also snitches to Palm about which applications you’ve been using and for how long, and also sends details about any crashed applications. Big brother at its worst, right? Well. Not really...

Powering up the Palm Pre for the first time means involves agreeing to Google having access to your ‘anonymised’ data. Given that the Pre pretty much keeps all of its data in the cloud anyway, it’s highly likely that it passes through Palm before going to Google. And what’s the problem with Palm knowing which applications you’re using? You can bet that Apple keeps equally close tabs on what it’s iPhones are up to, although perhaps not quite so surreptitiously.

The Register asked Palm about the claims, who replied with:

“Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when location based services are used, we collect their information to give them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust.”

We think it’s all a fuss about nothing, but Palm should at least make users aware that their Pre’s are reporting back to base on a regular basis — and provide an opt-out.

Incidentally, there’s still no official word on when we can see a GSM Palm Pre in the UK, although rumours are circulating. The latest pegs O2 with a 30 October launch for the Pre , which would give Palm a generous run up to Xmas — assuming that shoppers browsing in the O2 store don’t get distracted by the iPhone, of course. Let’s just hope we get the same slightly improved models that have just started shipping in the US.

[via Endgadget]