Your phone, yourself: When is tracking too much?

Your phone, yourself: When is tracking too much?

If you’re worried about privacy, you can turn off the function on your smartphone that tracks where you go. But that means giving up the services that probably made you want a smartphone in the first place. After all, how smart is an iPhone or an Android if you can’t use it to map your car trip or scan reviews of nearby restaurants?

Apple under pressure over iPhone location tracking

Apple under pressure over iPhone location tracking

Apple is under pressure to explain why the iPhone tracks and stores users' movements in a hidden file. 

 

The Information Commissioner today said anyone who is concerned about the log of their whereabouts can make a complaint to his officials, who enforce the Data Protection Act.

Overnight US Congressmen led calls for Apple to explain itself over the way the iPhone logs users' coordinates based on the mobile network masts to which they are connected. The Federal Communications Commission meanwhile reportedly said it would look into the matter.

The file is stored on both the phone and the computer it is associated with, and is not protected by a password or encryption. The security firm F-Secure also claimed the iPhone reports location data back to Apple twice a day.

iPhone and iPad can track a user's location history

iPhone and iPad can track a user's location history

Security researchers find a hidden data file in the Apple devices that can contain detailed records of user whereabouts.
Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad are keeping very close track of where you've been.

Security researchers said they found a file hidden in the operating software of Apple's devices that can contain tens of thousands of records of a user's precise geographical location, each marked with a timestamp.

Those records create a highly detailed history of a user's whereabouts over months or even years.

The data are in an unprotected file embedded in the phone and tablet computer, the researchers said Wednesday, allowing hackers who pick up a lost iPhone or iPad access to the location history with relative ease.

The discovery comes as technology companies are coming under increasing scrutiny for the ways in which they collect, store and share personal information gleaned from consumers' use of digital devices.

Apple, Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., three of the most popular consumer technology companies, have attracted intense scrutiny from regulators and privacy advocates.