This TRACKING thing: can't you just power off the phone?

It is an issue because the location data is retained permanently. It's quite reasonable that the device knows where you are now, and maybe where you've just come from, so that location services-based features and apps can work.

It is not reasonable that it remembers where you were last month, last year or whatever. At the least, you should hav an option to choose whether or not the dat is retained.

It's possible to be a fan of Apple without falling into the trap of thinking that they can never make a mistake.

Stasis88 wrote:

This exact database has already been used in multiple court cases!!!

Can you provide specific examples of cases where this database has been used? My research suggest that it hasn't been used at all, but if you can show differently, I'd like to know

nick101 wrote:

Can you provide specific examples of cases where this database has been used? My research suggest that it hasn't been used at all, but if you can show differently, I'd like to know

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20056344-281.html

http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/04/21/2359672/iphone-tracking-file-is-old-news.htm l

Kiwiphone4 wrote:

Your phone is like a computer that is constantly connected to the internet with no virus protection.

No, mine does have protection. I only use appstore apps, and they are regulated.

So far there is no iPhone virus, and no way for my iphone to get one.

Hahaha, you are not too educated on security are you. You really believe that because Apple insists on approving all apps that you are completely safe? First of all there have already been apps that Apple has not caught, and were sold in the AppStore that did things they would never allow. They dont get the code, just the compiled app. Secondly an app is far from the only way you can be compromised. The recent jailbreakme,com exploit site showed us without doubt that the iPhone can be 100% compromised from a simple website. Not an app, not something you ran, you go to a website and your entire OS is taken over. Luckily jailbreakme,com was used for non-malicious reasons, but they were able to completely remove all of Apple's so called "protection" and have absolute control over the device.

Look mate, apple has every right to collect GPS locations, all other mobile companies like sanding are aloud to do the exact same thing, as for security, the iPod and iPhone have been out for years now and no virus has been made.

Stasis88 wrote:

nick101 wrote:

Can you provide specific examples of cases where this database has been used? My research suggest that it hasn't been used at all, but if you can show differently, I'd like to know

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20056344-281.html

http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/04/21/2359672/iphone-tracking-file-is-old-news.htm l

Helpful - thanks

@Michael Black Don't compare Android with the iOs behaviour. Android uses a cache that can carry a low amount of entries (50?). As soon as the cache is full, old entries get purged. iOs on the other hand has a life time protocol that goes back till the day you switched on your phone for the first time.

@Kiwiphone4 Of course my HD is encrypted. Anybody having any type of confidential informations unencrypted - especially on mobile devices - should get punished.

As you for trusting Apple to be able to find any exploit possible in a binary, please come back on earth. Apple is testing *binaries*. That's exactly what every virus scanner does. And nobody sane would expect a virus scanner to be 100% accurate.

@Dom Hirst This thread is not about Apple collecting informations. Others companies are not doing the same thing. And virusses are not the only measure for security.

"Al Franken", the guy from Saturday Night Live?

Yes. He''s the junior senator from Minnesota. Where have you been?

Matt

eHug, that cache reportedly gets transmitted to Google multiple times each and every day, according to the Wall St. Journal and other news sources. Google is also now in the same boat - accused of collecting and storing massive amounts of location information on Android phone users. The data on the phone is only purged AFTER it has been uploaded to Google's servers.

And I for one will not be surprised as we inevitably learn that others are also doing it (microsoft phones, anyone?). There is a huge market for location based data - again, the news reports estimate that information may be worth as much as $3 billion USD for those who have it and are willing to sell it to marketing agencies and such.

P.S. okay, google supposedly does allow you disable it by unselecing the use of "google location services", but seems dang few people even understood what that option check box even meant until recently.

24Golfer wrote:

I also think that for lay-people such as myself who considers himself not-quite-so tech-savvy, the extra step to "encrypt" or whatever is exactly that - ANOTHER extra step we would have to take,

It's not much of a step. Just check the option in iTunes.

Matt

@Michael Black There might be some confusion on the topic since there are two different databases on both platforms.

The first one is a GPS based database that also submits data to Apple/Google. On both platforms there's an Opt Out function that you can use to stop the submission of data to the manufacturers.

The second one seems to be a local cache that saves geo data even when GPS is off (by using less accurate wlan or gps cell data). This database is restricted to a few entries on Android meaning you can only see the last hours of movement. The same database on iOs never purges old data thus saves it data for life time, which means you got a life time movement profiles on all iOs devices.

The second is the database that the public discussion at the moment is about, thus I referred to it. You were talking about Opt Out which doesn't exist for this database, so you likely refer to the first one.

@24Golfer I am not trying to be mean or something but if you let confidential data lie around unencrypted that's a very worrysome behaviour. While I understand that you might dislike to invest an hour of your time to read into this, I don't see that as a valid reason to endanger the data of the company you work for or your friends/family trust you with. If you not on an iPad/iPhone/iPod where Apple doesn't allow you to encrypt your data/file system it's easy and free to do so.