Apple: We don't track user location on iPhones
NEW YORK - Apple says the idea that iPhones store their users' locations is based on a misunderstanding of how the phones help determine where they are.
The company says the data file uncovered by researchers and publicized last week isn't a log of a phone's location, but a list of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers nearby. That helps the phone figure out its location without having to listen for faint signals from GPS satellites.
Apple also says a software bug causes the phones to keep the data longer than intended.
It's the first comprehensive response to allegations that iPhones store up to a year's worth of user location data. Those reports have drawn attention from Congress.
Privacy watchdogs have demanded answers about why the iPhones and iPads are apparently secretly collecting location data on users - records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to disgorge.
It's not clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information on their users. And last week's revelation that the Apple devices do wasn't even new; Some security experts began warning about the issue a year ago.
But the worry prompted by a report from researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden at a technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., raises questions about how much privacy you implicitly surrender by carrying around a smartphone and the responsibility of the smartphone makers to protect sensitive data that flows through their devices.
Researchers emphasize that there's no evidence that Apple itself has access to this data. The data apparently stays on the device itself, and computers the data is backed up to.
Tracking is a normal part of owning a cellphone. What's done with that data, though, is where the controversy lies. A central question in this controversy is whether a smartphone should act merely as a conduit of location data to service providers and approved applications - or as a more active participant by storing the data itself, to make location-based applications run more smoothly or help better target mobile ads or any number of other uses.
The existence of the location-data file on the phone is alarming because it's unencrypted, the researchers said, which means that anyone with access to the device can see it.
Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, questioned whether the practice may be illegal under a federal law governing the use of location information for commercial purposes, if consumers weren't properly informed.
Separately, Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, also sent a letter to Steve Jobs expressing his concerns and posing a set of pointed questions to Apple's CEO (who is now on medical leave from the company.