Parents go to extreme lengths to protect their children, and that makes random technical glitches that put those children at risk all the more terrifying. Yesterday, T-Mobile’s SyncUP Kids tracking service experienced an error that revealed the location of multiple children to individuals that were not their parents.
Parents can buy a small GPS tracker and use it with their T-Mobile plan. It’s ideal for parents who aren’t ready to give their child a phone, but who want to be able to track their location when they’re away from home. One parent spoke to 404Media regarding the glitch and said that she could not see her own children, she could see the locations of numerous other children across the country.
“As a mother, this is super alarming to me, and I raised flags right away [with T-Mobile] and nobody took me seriously there,” Jenna (name changed for privacy) said. “I was probably shown more than eight children. I would log in and I couldn’t see my children but I could see a kid in California. I refreshed and then I had no trackers, and then I refreshed again and would see a different child.”
In addition to SyncUp Kids, T-Mobile has another device called the SyncUp Drive that was also affected. Users reported the ability to see vehicles that were not their own. Upon refreshing the service, another vehicle would appear.
T-Mobile had previously announced that older SyncUp devices could lose functionality and features as the company moves to sunset legacy devices, and this recent fiasco has many customers wondering if the two events are related. The privacy violations are staggering, and while it doesn’t appear that anyone could force the system to show a specific person, the idea that it might be possible — and that personal user locations aren’t secure — has raised concern among customers.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.