Apple plans to modify tracking ability

Apple Inc. (AAPL) released a statement today to quell concerns about how the company is using data tracked from user’s locations, which has become a hot topic in the wake of research that the company has a hidden file in the iPhone that compiles timestamps, latitude and longitude. Researchers revealed that Apple was storing months worth of location data on the iPhone and 3G iPad and raised fears that the company was tracking users.
The revelation was discovered last year and made little news until the iPhone Tracker application allowed users to view their stored location data. The data transfers from the phone to a user’s computer when the iOS device syncs with iTunes. The iPhone Tracker app shows the data from a user’s computer along with a map that surprised many users.
The informal question and answer release asserts that the company does not track user locations, has never done so and doesn’t have any plans to do so. Apple said the file on the device includes a database of local cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots that is used to assist in location services and is only there to expedite the phone’s feature of identifying where it is. The company claims that using only GPS would take too much time for users to pinpoint their locations in a timely manner and that points recorded on the file may be up to 100 miles away from the device’s actual location. The data is sent to Apple anonymously in an encrypted form, the company claims.
Apple does acknowledge two bugs in its system, with one relating to how much data the phone stores from Wi-Fi hotspots and cell tower triangulation, and a second bug that continues to update this data even when a user turns the location services feature off. The company says it will address both of these issues with a software update and stop the practice of backing up data in iTunes when a user syncs with their computer.
The iPhone can store up to one year’s worth of this data and Apple said in its statement that the company doesn’t think the device needs to store more than a week of a user’s location data.
Apple said the software update will come out in the coming weeks with another update in the future that will encrypt information and make it less available for hacking. The company said the update will reduce the size of the crowd-sourced wireless hotspot and cell tower database stored on the iPhone, that backing up the cache of data will cease and that when location services are turned off, the cache will be deleted.
Congress is talking about the implications of the location tracking and at least one lawsuit has been filed so far.