Why are iPhones Tracking Users’ Locations?

Transcript by www.newsy.com BY KELSEY WAANANEN ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN You’re watching tech global video news analysis from Newsy. Never go anywhere without your iPhone? Maybe that’s not such a good thing.Two UK researchers have discovered a file in the latest iOS — which keeps records of users’ longitudes, latitudes and time stamps. The security firm discusses what they found. ”So I started poking around inside the backups on the mac. And I actually stumbled across a direct recall that’s called locationD. And I thought, that’s looks interesting. So I had to poke around in there and I came across something called consolidated.db which was full of latitudes and longitudes and timestamps and cell IDs…” From there, the researchers found whenever a user connects their Apple iOS 4 device to a computer, the location information is uploaded through iTunes. But what does this mean for the millions of people with the iPhone 4 or iPad 3G? Is Big Brother watching? TIME’s Techland says – no. ”The developers point out that the data being collected doesn’t appear to be sent anywhere…” But just because the information isn’t being directly sent to anyone doesn’t mean its inaccessible, says the blog 9 to 5 Mac. ”This may not be problematic for regular Joes, but …If you’re a high-ranked executive in a corporation, a celebrity or some kind or a VIP, someone could steal your computer and plot your location history to determine where you live and work, your daily routine and more …