Lawmakers Upset Over iPhone, iPad Location Tracking

Lawmakers are asking Apple for answers following the discovery that its iPod and iPad devices are regularly storing a list of its users’ locations. The findings were revealed Wednesday by Alasdair Allan, a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter, and Pete Warden, a former Apple programmer and founder of OpenHeatMap.com. The researchers claim “there’s no immediate harm” from the data records, but lawmakers are up in arms about the privacy implications of the discovery.

The researchers said devices using Apple’s iOS 4 software update are “intentionally” recording and storing each users’ latitude and longitude coordinates along with a time stamp to a file called “consolidated.db.” The location data is probably determined by cell-tower triangulation, the researchers said, and although the data is not exact, it’s detailed enough to determine where and when a user had been since the software update. The unencrypted location data file is also transferred to consumers’ computers each time the device is synced, Allan and Warden said. IPhone and iPad users who are concerned about the tracking capabilities of their devices can encrypt their data by selecting “Encrypt iPhone Backup” in the iTunes options menu. Allan and Warden said they don’t know why Apple was collecting the data, and calls to Apple were not immediately returned.

On Thursday, the co-chairman of the House Bi-partisan Privacy Caucus, Ed Markey, D-Mass., sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking him why the company was collecting customers’ location data. “Apple needs to safeguard the personal location information of its users to ensure that an iPhone doesn’t become an iTrack,” Markey wrote. “Collecting, storing and disclosing a consumer’s location for commercial purposes without their express permission is unacceptable and would violate current law.”

Members of Congress have previously scrutinized the tracking behaviors of wireless carriers and online companies. Although carriers already track consumer location information for billing purposes, they're required to comply with Section 222 of the Communications Act and must get express authorization from consumers for use, disclosure or access to location information for commercial reasons.

Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Al Franken, D-Minn., also sent a letter to Jobs late Wednesday that said the company’s operating system puts children and teens at risk. “The existence of this information, stored in an unencrypted format, raises serious privacy concerns,” Franken wrote. “Anyone who gains access to this single file could likely determine the location of a user’s home, the businesses he frequents, the doctors he visits, the schools his children attend, and the trips he has taken over the past months,” he said.

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., also expressed his concern and pressed lawmakers for more oversight of data collection activities. “I'm deeply disturbed by this report,” Inslee said. “I have been concerned that current law fails to ensure consumers are protected from privacy violations. Consumers are often left to learn of these breaches of privacy from hackers and security experts because companies fail to disclose what data they are collecting and for what purpose. This episode, and many others, illustrates the need for enhanced government oversight of data collection activities,” he said.

One analyst downplayed the news, saying consumers shouldn’t be surprised that smartphones are tracking their location data. “There is lots of data that is logged on your device all the time,” said Daniel Castro, a senior analyst at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. “We are seeing a lot of interesting applications and services based on location. We don’t want to stop that but certainly people should be aware of data that is being tracked on them.”

The news coincides with a recent report that consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about location tracking on their mobile phones and applications. Nearly 60 percent of female users and 52 percent of male users say they're concerned about applications that track their locations via mobile phones, said a report released by Nielsen on Thursday.