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Here are 7 surprising things your smartphone knows about you, number 5 was a shock!

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Smartphones are the most visible means by which we spy on ourselves.

Your smartphone knows all about you, including intimate details about your life and your identity. This is why Apple is trying to resist a government order to break the encryption on the iPhone. Without the safeguard of encryption, privacy becomes a thing of the past.

Highlights

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Before too long, it will be impossible to commit any serious crime and escape the consequences. Police will be able to seize your phone and learn everything about your whereabouts as well as build a complete profile of your identity, your tastes and preferences, and possibly even your moods.

Smartphones are remarkable devices. They are now our televisions, our radios, and ever our debit and credit cards. They serve as virtual banks, as cameras, and as encyclopedias. But smartphones are also spies, aggregating a trove of data which if properly mined can reveal even the most intimate details about our lives. Even if your phone is off, it can still aggregate data about you.


Most of that data is safe or is anonymously filtered by private companies that want to understand how people use its applications. Their goal is to get people to buy more things by hitting them with marketing at precisely the right time.

To protect you from hackers and identity thieves, the manufacturers of these various products have developed sophisticated encryption systems to make the data on your phone unintelligible to unauthorized third parties. Often that encryption is so good, even the manufacturers themselves cannot crack it.

However, this is what the Federal Government is asking Apple to do in the case of the San Bernardino terrorists. The FBI wants Apple to break the iPhone's encryption so they can answer key questions in their investigation.

Apple however, fears their work could help hackers break into iPhones around the globe and could give the government a tremendous degree of power to spy on people. This could damage the Apple brand and curtail the privacy of millions of people.

So far, Federal courts seem to be siding with Apple, but the FBI could appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court.

The society we live in is becoming increasingly connected. We already live in a world of all-encompassing electronic surveillance. For now, that surveillance is chiefly commercial. It's up to us and the decisions we make today to determine if that surveillance becomes more than what it already is.

Here are seven surprising things your smartphone knows about you.

1. Your location. Your smartphone constantly tracks your location by GPS, even when you have no service or reception. The phone also tracks its location by bouncing signals off of cell towers. Police have tracked stolen devices and kidnapping victims in this manner.

2. Your weather. Your smartphone has a barometer which can help tell your altitude as well as the weather in your area. This information is sent to a database, but it is unclear how it is used.

3. Your habits and routine. Humans are shockingly predictable. Studies using phones have demonstrated that we are far more predictable than we think. This data helps advertisers pitch ads over your phone based on what they think you will do next.

4. Your phone can sense your mood. Based on what you type into social media, the phone can serve as a psychologist, ascertaining your mood. It is unknown if or how this information is used.

5. Your phone knows when you're likely to spend time being intimate. Based on fertility apps and other activities, your phone knows when you're going to be active in the bedroom.

6. Who you're going to date and possibly marry. Phone data reveals that people change how they interact with one another as they warm up to a relationship. Your phone knows when you're going to begin seeing somebody even before you realize it. It can also predict when you might become single.

7. When you're going to be sick. Again, using social networks, your phone can calculate a probability that you are going to be sick within a given timeframe. It has a lot to do with how people around you are feeling. Such data can be useful in tracking the spread of common illnesses such as the flu.

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Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

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