Apple: We 'must have' comprehensive user location data on you

April 23, 2011 5:35 PM EDT

Apple: We 'must have' comprehensive user location data on you - International Business Times

Security researchers unveiled this week that Apple's iPhone was actively logging the whereabouts of users, storing location data into an easily assessable file on the device.

But it's not just iPhones that are keeping track of their users.

Apple's iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and iPad models are also keeping track of consumers whereabouts. Mac computers running Snow Leopard and even Windows computers running Safari 5 are being watched.

The question is why?

The company has remained silent after researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed this Wednesday that the iPhone was storing logs of users' geographic coordinates in a hidden file.

"We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations," the security experts wrote in their blogs.

While Apple has since remained tight-lipped on the matter, not responding to any media-inquires, another privacy snafu last year gives insight into what the company is doing with the information.

In June 2010, Congressmen Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas wrote a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs inquiring about Apple's privacy policy and location-based services

In response the company's general counsel Bruce Sewall wrote a letter explaining its practice, and shedding light on the rationale the company uses to monitor users.

"To provide the high quality products and services that its customers demand, Apple must have access to the comprehensive location-based information," Sewall told Congress in the letter.

After emphasizing Apple's commitment to users' privacy, Sewall said that to provide these location-based services, Apple, its partners and licensees, may collect, use and share customers' precise location data, including GPS information, nearby cell towers and neighboring Wi-Fi networks.

While the security researchers Allan and Warden did not confirm whether the devices were actively sending data back to Apple, Sewall said that it was within Apple's right to do so.

"By using any location-based services on your iPhone, you agree and consent to Apple's and its partners' and licensees' transmission, collection, maintenance, processing and use of your location data to provide such products and services," Sewall's letter reads, citing Apple's End User Agreement.

But he added that the information is collected anonymously and the devices give users controls for disabling the location features.

In addition to giving Apple customers the ability to turn off all location features with one "on/off" toggle switch, Apple requires applications to get explicit customer when it asks for location information for the first time.

Apple also stores the location information in a database only accessibly to Apple, the letter says.

But though Apple says that its location data practices support the services its customers want, analysts and activists say the practice still raises serious questions.

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

I think this issue is actually the tip of the proverbial iceberg of data collection.

So many systems are collecting so much information all the time. All it would take would be a consolidation of that data and we would suddenly live in a world very different than today from a privacy perspective.

I love the "but everybody is doing it" arguments

F

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

As much as I dislike it, and hey, what happens if/when law enforcement would like to sign up for a license to use Apple's database? (need a warrant for that? oversight?)

I have to think, atm, they're just vacuuming everything up because they think it has value, but don't know how to make money off it, yet. Kinda like the start of the tech boom in the late 90s. Billions of dollars flung at internet start ups... because they're on teh internets and thats where the future is! But the cart was before the horse, and pop goes the bubble.

But eventually a few companies did start making money, profits even. So I have to think, somehow, someway, Apple and others will find ways to make money of this information... I just kinda worry what that will end up being.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

I think this kind of thing is going to be inevitable, because there are all sorts of things you could do with location data. The problem is rather that its being held under private property rights and used for projects that benefit those owners. If it were handled in the same manner as say the government holds your address in its tax records, among others, many of the potential problems might be resolved.