Wired: iPhones Send Your Location Data to Apple Every 12 Hours

[SomeDudeAsking]

Interestingly enough, regarding Windows Phone 7:

http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-ph...feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wmexperts+(wpcentral)


It's in the Terms of Service, not the EULA.


Every smartphone manufacturer, including RIM, has similar terms. Boy Genius did all of the leg work, quoting and linking to the terms here.

Windows Phone 7 only sends that info to Microsoft when an app requests a location lock using the AGPS/GPS, which is perfectly acceptable, even required in many cases to conserve battery life. The difference is that Apple does this 24/7 without your consent and sends it all when the iPhone phones home.

And if you actually read the Terms of Service you quoted, it says that Apple gives you a choice of turning off this location collection through the settings panel, which is blatantly false. Apple collects your location history 24/7 and phones home with it every 12 hours and gives you no choice about it. Apple's location history collection does not respect any settings.

 

[johndallas999]

Like there is no antennae issue.......

LOL, so true! Jobs is a smart guy but also an egomaniac. How on earth can a CEO of a major company dismiss something that was happening to one of their products by blaming the user from holding it wrong....

 

[harrisondavies]

Only people who have something to hide have something to fear. One one side it could be used to prove you were somewhere you shouldn't be, if you're a bad boy, and on the other it could prove your weren't somewhere you shouldn't be if you're a good boy.

If you have nothing to hide what's the problem?

 

[kicko]

Track us or dont track us it's fine, just give people a heads up what your doing and also an opt out.

If we provide information to companies so THEY can better market products and maximize profits then i think its only right that WE get compensated for doing so.

I'll let them track me for a year if i can get a iphone 5 - free

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Only people who have something to hide have something to fear. One one side it could be used to prove you were somewhere you shouldn't be, if you're a bad boy, and on the other it could prove your weren't somewhere you shouldn't be if you're a good boy.

If you have nothing to hide what's the problem?

Fine then, post your location 24/7 online and let us track you.

 

[VulchR]

Only people who have something to hide have something to fear. One one side it could be used to prove you were somewhere you shouldn't be, if you're a bad boy, and on the other it could prove your weren't somewhere you shouldn't be if you're a good boy.

If you have nothing to hide what's the problem?

Wow. Just wow.

 

[dubnde]

i think if you own a smartphone or some other pieces of technology these days and you don't think that some company is collecting geo-data or other info about you with you knowing, i think you are completely naive.

there are legit reasons why Apple/ATT needs to collect location based data though...if you don't think so you should educate yourself on how a cell-based communication network actually functions.

So why don't they explicitly tell us? They do some for apps they know will collect/use location information.

 

[VulchR]

Only people who have something to hide have something to fear. One one side it could be used to prove you were somewhere you shouldn't be, if you're a bad boy, and on the other it could prove your weren't somewhere you shouldn't be if you're a good boy.

If you have nothing to hide what's the problem?

Oops. Double-post. Nothing to see here. Move along.

 

[harrisondavies]

Fine then, post your location 24/7 online and let us track you.

Do you want geo-coordinates or an actual address? Happy to as I have nothing to hide. no-one ever complains when people Check In via facebook do they?

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Fine then, post your location 24/7 online and let us track you.

Do you want geo-coordinates or an actual address? Happy to as I have nothing to hide. no-one ever complains when people Check In via facebook do they?

Post both here. What have you got to hide?

 

[harrisondavies]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)



Post both here. What have you got to hide?

I'm currently here working:

Regent Centre
Gosforth, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne And Wear NE3, UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regent_Centre

Coordinates: 55°00′42″N 1°37′26″W / 55.0117°N 1.624°W / 55.0117; -1.624

Hope that helps.

 

[BHP41]

I'm currently here working:

Regent Centre
Gosforth, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne And Wear NE3, UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regent_Centre

Coordinates: 55°00′42″N 1°37′26″W / 55.0117°N 1.624°W / 55.0117; -1.624

Hope that helps.

Be afraid. Somedudeasking will now be focusing all his energy he was using for his troll/apple hating threads on tracking you. Danger, danger Will Robinson. LMAO

Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this??? Oh yea it's apple and somedudeasking couldn't wait for something like this. Google has been doing this and more with Android since it's inception. Do you think google really cares about a smartphone OS?? No, no they don't, that's why it feels unfinished, just as the rest of their "free" products. They care about what actually makes them money. Ads.

Does apple really give rats ass about your location for anything other than assisting the phone for general use. Appears not.

 

[ap3604]

I'm currently here working:

Regent Centre
Gosforth, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne And Wear NE3, UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regent_Centre

Coordinates: 55°00′42″N 1°37′26″W / 55.0117°N 1.624°W / 55.0117; -1.624

Hope that helps.

Way to shut the whiners up harrisondavies!

As you said those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear, unlike some of the others on this thread...

 

[goosnarrggh]

And if you actually read the Terms of Service you quoted, it says that Apple gives you a choice of turning off this location collection through the settings panel, which is blatantly false. Apple collects your location history 24/7 and phones home with it every 12 hours and gives you no choice about it. Apple's location history collection does not respect any settings.

(My emphasis added.)

Do you have proof that the iPhone keeps on sending this data back to Apple even after location services are shut off? Heck, do you have proof that the iPhone even attempts to get a fix on its own location in the first place, while location services are shut off?

 

[torbjoern]

If the information is really anonymised prior to transmission, I don't see the big problem here.

 

[aristobrat]

Apple collects your location history 24/7 and phones home with it every 12 hours and gives you no choice about it.

According to Apple's response to the House of Representatives on how the iPhone handles location-based data, your statement about the phoning home part is incorrect.

Location Based Information
Second, to help Apple update and maintain its database with known location information, Apple may also collect and transmit Cell Tower and Wi-Fi Access Point Information automatically. With one exception*, Apple automatically collects this information only (1) if the device's location-based service capabilities are turned to "On" and (2) the customer uses an application requiring location-based information. If both conditions are met, the device intermittently and anonymously collects Cell Tower and Wi-Fi Access Point Information from the cell towers and Wi-Fi access points that it can "see", along with the device's GPS coordinates, if available. This information is batched then encrypted and transmitted to Apple over a Wi-Fi Internet connection every twelve hours (or later if the device does not have Wi-Fi Internet access at that time).

* For GPS-enabled devices with location-based service capabilities turned to "On", Apple automatically collects Wi-Fi Access Point Information and GPS coordinates when a device is searching for a cellular network, such as when the device is first turned on or trying to re-establish a dropped connection. The device searches for nearby Wi-Fi network access points for approximately thirty seconds. The device collects anonymous Wi-Fi Access Point Information for those it can "see". This information and the GPS coordinates are stored (or "batched") on the device and added to the information sent to Apple. None of the information transmitted to Apple is associated with a particular user or device.

GPS Information
With one exception[*, see above], Apple collects GPS Information only if (1) the location-based service capabilities of the device are toggled "On" and (2) the customer uses an application requiring GPS capabilities. The collected GPS Information is batched on the device, encrypted, and transmitted to Apple over a secure Wi-Fi Internet connection (if available) every twelve hours with a random identification number that is generated by the device every twenty-four hours. The GPS Information cannot be associated with a particular customer or device.

 

[Apple 26.2]

So as long as your not doing illegal sh•t then this doesn't even affect you. Personally I'd be happy if someone falsely identified me in a crime that I could have the police look up my location data to verify I wasn't there at all.

So the only negative thing that apple would actually do with this data is help law enforcement catch people committing crimes? Sounds like a real negative all right

Wow. Ignorance *is* bliss. Where you are and where your phone is are two different things. Yes, chances are that most people have their phone with them most of the time, but in court, where you have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, "chances are" isn't good enough.

Conversely, one could claim that they weren't somewhere simply by saying look at my phone's location log. However, if physical evidence exists placing you at a certain locale, very little this DB will do for you.

 

[cas85]

Fine then, post your location 24/7 online and let us track you.

you started a thread to complain about a company tracking you, and now you want to do the tracking. the cycle is complete. you are big brother.

 

[aristobrat]

Apple Q&A on Location Data

April 27, 2011
Apple Q&A on Location Data

Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?
Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone’s location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?
Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

* reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
* ceases backing up this cache, and
* deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

 

[Brutos]

I see a al-qaeda general was seen with a iPhone 4 just hours before being killed by a missile strike, so apple tracking people ain't that bad after all then.

 

[NikeTalk]

To the guy that posted where he works. Now post your home address, where your wife works, where your kids go to school, where your parents live, your families favorite restaurant, etc..

You got nothing to hide right? Then post that info too.. MR will be waiting. Thanks.

 

[kdarling]

According to Apple's response to the House of Representatives on how the iPhone handles location-based data, your statement about the phoning home part is incorrect.

Yep, that's what they told Congress: no collection if Location Services off.

Apple Q&A on Location Data

Thanks for the post.

Q7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?

A: It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

Ouch. So some of the news articles were correct: Apple's code was continuing to download data even if it supposed to ignore the request. Waste of battery.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

According to Apple's response to the House of Representatives on how the iPhone handles location-based data, your statement about the phoning home part is incorrect.

Yep, that's what they told Congress: no collection if Location Services off.

Apple Q&A on Location Data

Thanks for the post.

Q7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?

A: It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).[/I]

Ouch. So some of the news articles were correct: Apple's code was continuing to download data even if it supposed to be off. Waste of battery.

That's no bug, it's intentional. Like how Steve Jobs just so conveniently said that the iPhone reception bars were wrong for the past 4 versions of the iPhone and that there is no antennae issue. And notice how there are other so convenient "bugs" Apple is using to dismiss all actions.

 

[VulchR]

To those who asserted that the log was not collected when location services were turned off, enjoy your dinner.

Bon Appetit!

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

To the guy that posted where he works. Now post your home address, where your wife works, where your kids go to school, where your parents live, your families favorite restaurant, etc..

You got nothing to hide right? Then post that info too.. MR will be waiting. Thanks.

I would also like the GPS location of his car and what hours he leaves it unattended at work.