iKnow Where You Were Last Summer

by Eric Pettifor

So, it turns out that phones running the iOS 4 update of June, 2010 log date and location wherever their owners take them. The data sits there on the phone. It is not transmitted to Apple, so the charge cannot be made that Apple is actively spying on its customers. But do take extra care not to lose the phone or have it stolen.

Apparently this data is also transferred to your computer when a sync operation is performed, so even if this inspires you to destroy the phone (you’ll really want to pulverize it to nix the storage component), the data will remain on the computer.

Of course, in this time of people voluntarily surrendering large amounts of personal information through such things as Facebook and Twitter, perhaps this is a feature. It may be that some enterprising app maker has already created an app to post your whereabouts for the past year to your Facebook page with just the push of a virtual button! If not, be sure they’re working on it. (Code already exists if, for some reason, you want to privately track your movements). This would make things easier for private investigators and spooks – learning a person’s past whereabouts from their Facebook account would be a lot less grief than having to steal their phone.

Of course, this sort of tracking can be done with an Android phone as well, but you will have to go through a lot of bother figuring out the feature and activating it, and you won’t have data from before the time you did. Apple thoughtfully keeps all this data for you right from the start. And the user has agreed to it. They gave Apple the right to collect such data at the end of a long licence agreement, every word of which I’m sure they read and considered carefully.

From the time of Apple’s first Mac they have been marketing to the clueless, removing from them the burden of having to know stuff. Heck, you have to jailbreak their appliances just to get administrative access. Trust Mother Steve, she’ll take care of you. But don’t even think about lying to mom about where you were last night.