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For those who are jailbroken with ssh installed, the file is located at /private/var/root/Library/Caches/locationd/consolidated.db on the phone. Regardless of jailbreak, it's in your iTunes backup (<home dir>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/<your device hash>) as the file 4096c9ec676f2847dc283405900e284a7c815836. It's a standard SQLite file.

Haven't had a chance to go through and see what mine looks like...
 
This is great for my alcoholic blackouts. Fire up the program and find out where I've been. Although on my last trip to San Diego it put me across the border and into a Tijuana cat house.
 
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."

You're dead on. Use a GPS device in your car? Can be tracked. Onstar? Tracked. Red light cameras, CCTV at buildings, etc? Yep, tracked.
 
I wonder, if in this day and age of "find my iPhone" and all the location-enabled apps on an iPhone, if it's not actually harder-to-the-point-of-impossible to ensure such information is immediately, constantly erased.
 
I thought this was an FCC mandate (to track GPS information for cellphones) after 9/11. The real issue is that this is not encrypted in anyway so anybody can get the information if they have access to the file.
 
huh...?

Will be interesting to see Apple's response to this. I don't necessarily mind the data being collected for things like find my iPhone and forensics but I'd like it to be very well secured.

Not sure what you are saying. You don't mind it being collected for forensics, yet you want it to be secured???

Forensics is the collection of data/information for legal purposes. This often entails surreptitious surveillance or electronic eavesdropping. By definition, the forensic investigation of your personal activities will NOT be "secured." On the contrary, a forensic investigation will seek to either covertly or directly obtain every available piece of personal information stored about you. Whether you are accused of a crime or just being surveilled and whether you are guilty or innocent is irrelevant. The point is, the information is available for anyone to obtain.
 
It *is* private now. This information isn't broadcast anywhere but your own personal computer in the form of an encrypted backup file. The information won't go anywhere but with you and your property.

However, if your iphone gets stolen, the GPS log is likely the least private thing you need to worry about. The thief will have access to your entire contact list, browsing history, etc..

Agree to that, but why is it being collected without permission?
 
Shame that everyone is going to jump to conclusions rather than work out why this is stored.

The obvious problem is that the data may be extracted -- against the will of the owner -- for a completely different reason than it was initially stored. See this comment in the discussion thread.
 
It *is* private now. This information isn't broadcast anywhere but your own personal computer in the form of an encrypted backup file. The information won't go anywhere but with you and your property.

However, if your iphone gets stolen, the GPS log is likely the least private thing you need to worry about. The thief will have access to your entire contact list, browsing history, etc..

The backup file isn't encrypted unless you select that option.

This database of your locations is stored on your iPhone as well as in any of the automatic backups that are made when you sync it with iTunes. One thing that will help is choosing encrypted backups, since that will prevent other users or programs on your machine from viewing the data, but there will still be a copy on your device.
from: http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

The data is actually collected by cell tower triangulation, not GPS.

The data appears to come from cell tower triangulation, rather than the GPS chip
from: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/20/your-iphone-is-silently-and-constantly-logging-your-location/
 
This is great for my alcoholic blackouts. Fire up the program and find out where I've been. Although on my last trip to San Diego it put me across the border and into a Tijuana cat house.

If the guys from The Hangover had iPhones, their backtracking of the previous days events would be much easier.
 
Where are people going that they need to be alarmist about this? Every phone, every gps thing, and more do this.
 
everyone is fine with sharing their personal info on facebook but a device that remembers where it has been?omg no!! anyway there aint a probleme as long as you dont lose your pc or iphone right?
 
This is total BS. We should have been informed of this and a way to turn it off or delete the file on our own. As for the poster above who stated it only goes to your computer, I highly doubt it. This is another big brother tracking honest citizens. Hope a class action does happen. I will definitely sign on!
 
Do the system logs of your Mac contain all the WiFi networks you have ever connected to? And can't you track a laptop's movement from this?

Logging takes place all the time, the question is always how long the logs are kept, system.log gets deleted after some time, it seems the oldest are eight days old on my Mac. Now, why would the iPhone not delete these log files after a while?
 
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OMG! Are you kidding me. This is outrageous.

You mean that my phone has been tracking all my comings and goings. Like how everyday I go to work, pick up the kids from daycare and take them home. Rinse and repeat. You mean there is a file with all those boring stats of my not so secret life. And to think next week I was planning on varying it up a bit. Maybe stopping off at acquire the essential items I need for my new job as a "cleaner" on my way to get the kids.

/end sarcasm/

The only people who will get bent about this are the ones who have no reason to be.
 
I doubt the information is accurate.

Update: The information is inaccurate.
 
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I doubt the information is accurate.

It is:

About the application the developers made:
To make it less useful for snoops, the spatial and temporal accuracy of the data has been artificially reduced. You can only animate week-by-week even though the data is timed to the second, and if you zoom in you’ll see the points are constrained to a grid, so your exact location is not revealed. The underlying database has no such constraints, unfortunately.

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/
 
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