Researchers Disclose iPhone and iPad Location-Tracking Privacy Issues

With respect to all the "view with alarm" postings that will follow, this really doesn't mean anything. I leave my home at the same time every morning. The transponder in my car records my passage and debits my account with the state highway department. Traffic cameras record my license plate at several points during my journey. Once out of the car, my smiling phiz can be seen on any number of CCTVs en route to my office, whose door I open with a card that automatically records my entry. The IP address of this posting will reveal that I am sitting in my living room as I write. Even without the GPS turned on, my phone regularly initiates a conversation with the local cell tower. I can be found with almost pinpoint accuracy.

So I'm not exactly going to panic to learn that my computer and phone keep a record of my latitude and longitude that they don't share with anyone else.

The government already knows where I live, where I work, where I bank, and all kinds of other interesting information. It's how they collect their taxes and send me my mail.

If there were the slightest indication that liberals, atheists, and other enemies of the state were being tracked by their GPSes and rounded up, I'd be the first to the barricades. But there isn't. Our privacy is not based on "nobody knows", it's based on "nobody cares."

Glad I am not the only person that feels this way. I do not appreciate having another method I can be tracked but at no point I am truly untrackable. The devices in Michigan seem to be a much bigger issue than someone else knowing what time my last trip to subway was at.

I feel sad for people who think it's okay for corporations, governments, or any organization to track and log your every move. Even when they apparently don't even bother to protect this information.

If you feel it's okay to be tracked like a tagged animal, that's your right. If you don't value yourself enough to think your privacy is important, go right ahead and feel that way.

But for the rest of us who believe in basic human rights, please don't help erode what little right to privacy we have left. Just because you don't care personally doesn't mean it's not a valid concern. I want the option of not having my every location logged unencrypted on my phone, and from the sound of many posts on this thread, I am definitely not alone.

The idea of a person truly having privacy is almost a joke. This little bit that we have left I feel is more of an illusion than something we actually have. People seem to be more than willing to track their entire lives on the internet without even being asked to do so. If you want some privacy the closest you are going to get is moving out into the country without a phone, gas, or electricity and live off what you can grow or hunt. Otherwise you are already tracked beyond what anyone that thinks about it should probably be comfortable with. This will not change what you will do in the next little bit though. I am quite sure you are still going to at least continue to use your debit card.

so the program can not find the file. Does that mean my iPhone isnt tracking me?

I was just about to post the same thing; the application says that it couldn't find the consolidated.db file. I even tried syncing my iPhone once more and it still didn't help. An interesting note though - I own a Verizon iPhone. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Help! Help! The paranoids are after me!

With respect to all the "view with alarm" postings that will follow, this really doesn't mean anything. I leave my home at the same time every morning. The transponder in my car records my passage and debits my account with the state highway department. Traffic cameras record my license plate at several points during my journey. Once out of the car, my smiling phiz can be seen on any number of CCTVs en route to my office, whose door I open with a card that automatically records my entry. The IP address of this posting will reveal that I am sitting in my living room as I write. Even without the GPS turned on, my phone regularly initiates a conversation with the local cell tower. I can be found with almost pinpoint accuracy.

So I'm not exactly going to panic to learn that my computer and phone keep a record of my latitude and longitude that they don't share with anyone else.

The government already knows where I live, where I work, where I bank, and all kinds of other interesting information. It's how they collect their taxes and send me my mail.

If there were the slightest indication that liberals, atheists, and other enemies of the state were being tracked by their GPSes and rounded up, I'd be the first to the barricades. But there isn't. Our privacy is not based on "nobody knows", it's based on "nobody cares."

I love all the dopes quoting various disclosures in agreements that we've agreed to. Just because something is written into terms of an agreement, does not make it lawful. Apple could put in their T&Cs you agree to allow Apple to shoot you dead if you jailbreak your iPhone. Do you think that would be OK too since you agreed to allow it?

Well now we know you're not an attorney, or at least a good one.

The granted patent describes exactly what is stored in the db... Instead of hysteria people should think a little more before becoming Jawas.
They have simply developed a method of accurately triangulating the devices position based upon (probably 4) towers.

And both my points has nothing to do with what is in the DB, it has to do with the lifetime of this content in the database. I know what is in there, I just don't want it to be kept indefinitely, nor do I want it in the backups on my Mac, as probably a lot of the people that aren't happy this in thread want.

I also want it to be disabled if I ask it to.

After all the press this is generating, I'm sure Apple will tone done the logging/lifetime to acceptable parameters and then we'll be able to all Move Along and be happy with our shiny toys once again.