Apple rejects claims that iPhone users are being tracked

iPhones and Smartphones as a whole, have so much technology onboard that they are taking priority as our main multimedia device when conducting our internet activities. All this technology and functionality has posed a question towards Apple. ‘Is Apple using Wi-Fi networks and mobile reception to track user movements?’

The question has been generated by two British computer programmers after some research. Apple has released a statement saying that they do not follow any of the location services such as GPS or Google Maps. Apple has no intention of tracking iPhones and never will.

Despite this the iPhone does log what Wi-Fi access points, 3G and transmitter towers that it connects to.  It does this so that it can establish its location very quickly. This log was discovered by the British programmers who found a hidden list of locations on your device.

This log was then updated to iTunes during a sync, this the means that other people with network sharing access can view this data, including Apple.

In response to these claims, Apple has said that they are going to release a new software update. The update will still have a log of connections to Wi-Fi and other services but the log will be much smaller. This log is according to Apple, a location database that will not be included in the sync to iTunes as before. So, the database will consist of less info and will only stay on the iPhone.

The database was used to increase the accuracy of the GPS and other location based services, so with a smaller database will this be compromised? Surely by not including this sync with iTunes it’s sufficient?