Big Brother may be watching me.

[brucet999]

I don't know if it is just my iPhone, or the Tesla App, or moles in Cupertino and Palo Alto, but I had a creepy experience last night.

As background, I should say that for quite some time I have found that while I am out and about, upon getting to my car I often see a pop-up on my iPhone screen saying something like "Traffic is light. Time to get home will be 17 minutes."

OK, iPhone has GPS info, or is it from the NAV?

What I found spooky was that last night in my driveway as I got into the car to go to a weekly Monday night German class, I glanced at the iPhone found a message that said "Traffic is light. Time to 17152 (xxxx) street will be 14 minutes."

Now, I go to this meeting every Monday at the same time, but I know the address and exactly how to get there, so there has never been a reason to enter that particular address into either my iPhone calendar or NAV.

How did this happen? I promise I am not going there to meet with the Russian Ambassador or Julian Assange and I don't think any of the members of my little German language discussion group is on NSA's radar.

 

[bonnie]

Do you have Waze running on your phone?

 

[phaduman]

or Google now...

 

[Zarwin]

Switched from working in the office to working at home and would regularly meet my old co-workers for lunch at the same restaurant. Google one day decided that the restaurant was my workplace based on (I guess) GPS data and started popping up "Time to work 21 minutes" and show the restaurant as the destination. It's probably all based on GPS patterns from your phone.

 

[msnow]

It's your iPhone not your car, I get it all the time. I think it's a combo of your location, calendar and Apple Maps.

 

[Festerfeet]

Apple Maps...I get this every day it also calculates journey time to calendar appointments if it has and address.

 

[cdub]

It's Google... it realizes patterns in your movements and offers up handy information that you might need based on past behavior. I get traffic notices for my commute home all the time on my Nexus phone.

 

[Logan5]

On the iPhone it's part of location services but as others have said you might get a similar pop up if you have the Google app installed on your phone. For the location services you can find the settings for this by going to:

Settings>Privacy>Location Services>System Services (at the very bottom of list)>Frequent Locations

It will list some of the locations you frequent. The pop up will appear when your phone connects via Bluetooth to your car. Apple may encrypt some of this information but if it worries you it's easy to turn off.

 

[jelloslug]

On the iPhone it's part of location services but as others have said you might get a similar pop up if you have the Google app installed on your phone. For the location services you can find the settings for this by going to:

Settings>Privacy>Location Services>System Services (at the very bottom of list)>Frequent Locations

It will list some of the locations you frequent. The pop up will appear when your phone connects via Bluetooth to your car. Apple may encrypt some of this information but if it worries you it's easy to turn off.

This.

 

[Haxster]

You think that's creepy? Leaving work yesterday, my phone message was:

"Traffic is light. Amanda wants you to stop at the market and get some milk and a can of tomato soup. Sandy's at her boyfriend Mike's. She's been there for 2 1/2 hours and both of Mike's parents are still at work. Turbo has been pacing at the door for the last half hour and needs to be let out. Amanda is still at Sally's. Should I call her for you?"​

 

[Saghost]

That's all Apple, who is watching you. Tesla might have the data, but they aren't doing it.

 

[BrettS]

As others have stated, this is part of the newest iOS software. However, it's worth noting that Apple is pretty privacy conscious and in this case big brother actually isn't watching you. The frequent location data that this is based on is *only* stored on your phone and not reported back to apple or even saved in iPhone backups. If you get a new iPhone the data will not come over and it will take a week or two before the new phone figures out what locations you frequent and it will start offering these suggestions again.

 

[Wshowell]

Obama!

 

[NikeWings]

I spend my time between two loactions and I've had Tesla SvC offer to have my tires delivered to a different SvC ~ 200 miles away, as they noticed I was out of town for several weeks. I've also had my DS txt me that he noticed I was "in town", and to swing by the center when I had a chance to pick up my wall charger. Yep, Tesla creeps me out.......though no different than the rest of the digital titans. There is a ton of permissions granted in the fine print, every time we click "I accept" on an app, download, etc.

 

[luckyj]

Oh yes. Big Brother is very interested in your life. One of millions is so interesting. Please, tell us more

 

[brkaus]

What other have said above, plus the phone is using the fact that it is connecting/disconnecting from an automotive Bluetooth device to decide when your in the car.

 

[Ulmo]

I don't know if it is just my iPhone, or the Tesla App, or moles in Cupertino and Palo Alto, but I had a creepy experience last night.

As background, I should say that for quite some time I have found that while I am out and about, upon getting to my car I often see a pop-up on my iPhone screen saying something like "Traffic is light. Time to get home will be 17 minutes."

OK, iPhone has GPS info, or is it from the NAV?

What I found spooky was that last night in my driveway as I got into the car to go to a weekly Monday night German class, I glanced at the iPhone found a message that said "Traffic is light. Time to 17152 (xxxx) street will be 14 minutes."

Now, I go to this meeting every Monday at the same time, but I know the address and exactly how to get there, so there has never been a reason to enter that particular address into either my iPhone calendar or NAV.

How did this happen? I promise I am not going there to meet with the Russian Ambassador or Julian Assange and I don't think any of the members of my little German language discussion group is on NSA's radar.

Google does that. It is tracking you. You set something in your phone to always track you. Waze does not allow itself to run unless you have set it to "always track you". As in everywhere. As in always. As in all the time. As in everyplace you go. Google bought Waze. I uninstalled Waze, but re-installed it to sometimes use it, but have its "always tracking" set to off other times.

I didn't know whether or not Apple did it, but @Logan5 above apparently answered that (to which the answer is yes Apple tracks you too) and how to find it and turn it off. I just found it, and it was defaulted to on, and it had recorded hundreds of my locations over the last few weeks. I hit Erase, and the history disappeared, and then I turned off tracking, and all the history re-appeared with the hundreds of locations again. So, I hit Erase again, and they disappeared again. I tested turning it on, erasing history, turning it off, erasing history, a bunch more times, to make sure the erase history command stuck. But, I don't trust that it's erased. At least it shows no history now.

 

[K-MTG]

It's a setting called frequent locations on the iPhone, it's very hidden. Go to settings, privacy, location services, system services, and turn off frequent locations. It shows a list of everywhere you have been.

 

[Smarty McFly]

As others have stated, it's a function of the iPhone. When it connects to your car's bluetooth, it displays the travel time to certain locations, since it knows you are in a car. It is also very good about learning routines and trying to be helpful.

 

[brucet999]

Do you have Waze running on your phone?

I have Waze, but haven't used it in over a year.