Why Apple Collects Location Data from Your iPhone

AFP / Getty Images

At this point, unless you’ve been living under a digital rock, everyone knows that Apple is collecting data from your iPhone. But why are they doing it?

(More: How to Encrypt Your iPhone’s Location Data)

Turns out the answer is simpler than you think, and it doesn’t involve a conspiracy theory, the government or David Duchovny. Basically, Apple keeps track of your location data so that it can maintain its own location database. By golly, it also turns out they’ve explained it some time ago–last summer.

Last year, Apple lawyer Bruce Sewell sent a letter to two congressmen explaining and disclosing Apple’s location-data collection techniques and policies. The 13-page letter reports that location data is only tracked and transmitted if a user turns on the Location Services option on in the Settings menu. If the option is turned off, nothing is collected.

According to the letter, the data is stored in what we can only assume is “consolidated.db,” randomly assigned an identification number every 24 hours, and sent off every 12 hours to Apple. The data gets stored in a secure database “accessible only by Apple.”

Apple then collects information about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access points whenever you utilize a service that requests your current location. It sometimes automatically happens with location-based apps that utilize GPS technology.

It turns out Apple ditched the location databases it was previously using from Google and SkyHook Wireless, and is in fact using their own. Now for that to happen, what Apple needs is location data. What better way than to pull it from the millions of existing iPhone customers already roaming around the globe?

(via WIRED)

More on TIME.com:

How to Encrypt Your iPhone’s Location Data (Consolidated.db)

Apple Geo Tracking: Now the Government Is Involved

Hidden iPhone File Records Your Location Coordinates

pks29733steel

Now Crapple has data to SELL!
onefaller

“The data gets stored in a secure database “accessible only by Apple.””

and by whomever is able to break into the db. Or by whomever subpoenas the data. Or by the government, under the Patriot act…
onefaller

The last sentence was supposed be surrounded by the [conspiracy theory] tag…
trrll

Let’s not be foolish. If the government wants to know where you’ve been, they can subpoena your cell records, which are not anonymized. For the same reason, it would be a better target for hackers. If you truly want not be be tracked, you shouldn’t carry any cell phone with a month to month account, much less a smartphone. For that matter, there are your credit card records, your ATM withdrawals, and your IP address, which is exposed every time you log int a web site.
http://thatscraptoo.wordpress.com thatscraptoo

“…only tracked and transmitted if a user turns on the Location Services…”

What does Apple gain by collecting location data? Rest assured they are doing it for profit of some sort. Apple does not use financial resources unless there is an intended ROI.

So if the user wants to use a service based on location, then it is Apple’s right to collect that information and profit further from that user. Sounds like the Jobs approach… We’ll use them to make more money because they didn’t say we couldn’t.
gatormob

trrll is right, but not only the government, any court can possibly get access to those records with a valid subpoena. Say a criminal suspect denies that he was at the bank when it was robbed, but his subpoenaed iPhone records show otherwise, he is in trouble. This data is a prosecutor’s dream come true. It also has implications for white collar crime, no contact/restraining orders, secret negotiations, public records, insider trading, etc.
http://gregjor87.wordpress.com gregjor87

really? does anyone still think that the location data is just being collected for creating their own location database? apple needs to build their own advertising network – to do that they need to show that they know their customers better than google. local is a huge part of that. i have a hard time believing that it’s not being used for targeting local ads. the temptations and $ is just too great.

the bigger question is what other data is being collected and what profile they have created.
http://wheelswrite.wordpress.com wheelswrite

I will stick to my berry. Why get an iPhone? It all sounds very sneaky to me.