How Apple tracks your location without consent

[Pigeon]

iPhone tracking

How Apple tracks your location without consent, and why it matters
by Jacqui Cheng

If you haven't yet enabled encrypted backups for your iPhone or iPad, now's definitely the time to start. Two security researchers have discovered a simple way to map out where you've been almost anywhere in the world—without any hacking involved. The information comes from a location cache file found within your iPhone's backups on your Mac or PC, bringing out serious privacy concerns and opening the door for a jealous spouse, thief, or even a crafty trojan to take a detailed look at your whereabouts. And it's information that no one should have access to—not even law enforcement, barring a court order.

Researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed their findings on Wednesday ahead of their presentation at the Where 2.0 conference taking place in San Francisco. The two discovered that the iPhone or 3G iPad—anything with 3G data access, so no iPod touch—are logging location data to a file called consolidated.db with latitude and longitude coodinates and a timestamp. The data collection appears to be associated with the launch of iOS 4 last June, meaning that many users (us at Ars included) have nearly a year's worth of stalking data collected.

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[Pam]

I have decided anyone can track me if they want, I don't give a poop anymore

[MrPenny]

You're gonna' need a bunch of kaopectate.

[Pam]

You're gonna' need a bunch of kaopectate.

I really need to think before I type! I walk right into it all the time!

[MrPenny]

Hey...good straight lines are hard to come by.....

You set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down.

[Pigeon]

It's probably easier to track someone in real life then trying to get into their phone. This would probably only be an issue to cheating spouses or folks on the run.

[Escape_Artist]

I didn't think this was true till I saw it on fox.

[Pigeon]

So it sounds as though if a user wants location based service, Apple gets the data. If Apple doesn't get the data, the user doesn't get the service. Happy railroading.

Rep. Ed Markey wants privacy answers from Steve Jobs (again)
by Nate Anderson

Questioning Apple's privacy policies has become a bicameral proposition. Twenty-four hours after researchers provided a new open-source tool for iPhone users to view their phone's logged location history, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) have both issued sets of questions for Apple CEO Steve Jobs. While Franken's letter requests a "prompt" response, Markey wants answers "within fifteen business days."

Markey has long been a leading voice on tech questions, and has previously chaired key committees related to tech issues, so his letter was hardly a surprise. Indeed, in June 2010, Markey co-authored another set of questions for Steve Jobs on the issues of privacy and location-based services.

Apple's response last summer (PDF) went into considerable detail about how Apple generates and handles such information. Apple describes how, if location-based services are on, the iPhone will collect both cell tower and WiFi network data, collate it into a batch file, encrypt it, and send it to Apple over a WiFi connection every 12 hours. This helps Apple build its own location database to resolve or refine location requests when GPS is not available.

Apple notes that customers can always turn off "all location-based service capabilities with a single 'On/Off' toggle switch… If customers toggle the switch to 'Off,' they may not use location-based services, and no location-based information will be collected."

Markey's new letter (PDF) asks many of the same questions his old letter did, including one about whether Apple complies with Section 222 of the Communications Act, which "requires express prior customer authorization for the use, disclosure of, or access to the customer's location information for commercial purposes."

Apple responded to this issue last year, saying that Apple is not subject to Section 222 but that "the privacy protections described in detail in this letter are consistent with the intent of Section 222."

Markey also wants to know if iPhone users can really disable the cell tower and WiFi logging, and he follows Franken's lead in asking about widespread use of iPhone and iPads by minors. "Is Apple concerned that the wide array of precise location data logged by these devices can be used to track minors, exposing them to potential harm?" he asks.

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[Egg]

From what I understand, if you sync your iphone up to your computer the info automatically loads to the comp and anyone can access it if you don't know about it.

[Pigeon]

Here comes the 'find his cheating ass' application, compete with Google map and yellow pages interface.