How concerned should I be about this news that my iPhone keeps a database of everywhere I’ve been? I’m sure the truth is somewhere between Steve Jobs’ “We don’t track anyone,” and that funny (and insane) South Park episode “HumanCentiPad,” but what’s the real deal?
Well, South Park, as wild as that episode was, does have a point that it’s smart to read license agreements before clicking Agree. (It’s a habit we need to get back into!) And when Steve Jobs allegedly emailed a user to say, “We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false,” he wasn’t lying; he just didn’t elaborate. Apple posted an official statement a couple days later to clarify the entire situation.
They’re not tracking you, not in the “we know where you’ve been!” way. According to Apple, the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad keep a database of Wi-Fi hot spots and cellular towers that your device has connected to. When you ask your phone to locate you (either through Location Services inside an app or right in the Maps app, for example), it queries that database to assist with finding you faster. Using just GPS can take a couple minutes, and having that database also helps the device figure out which GPS satellites are closest. And when GPS isn’t available because, for example, you’re inside, your location is triangulated with just hotspot and cell-tower data. “These calculations are performed live on the iPhone,” Apple says, “using a crowd-sourced database…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.”
Check this box, and you should be safe. Also, the iOS 4.3.3 update shrinks the cache to 7 days and keeps it from syncing to your Mac at all.
The whole database isn’t stored on your phone, just a cache of some of the data. And that cache is part of the backup that happens when you sync your phone with iTunes (or was until iOS 4.3.3). Which is how it ended up on your Mac, where, you’ve probably heard, it can be plotted on a map with an open-source application called iPhone Tracker (petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker). Anyway, Apple says the size of the cache and how far back it goes in time were “bugs” that would be fixed in an upcoming iOS update. As we went to press, they delivered iOS 4.3.3, which shortens the cache to 7 days and keeps it from syncing to your Mac at all.
But if you’re still concerned about someone getting their hands on this data, you can do two things: Don’t jailbreak your phone (which opens up the file system to potential hacking) and if you’re not upgrading to iOS 4.3.3 right away for whatever reason, check the box in your iTunes summary screen saying, “Encrypt iPhone backup” (or “Encrypt iPad backup”). Then just enter a password, and the file on your Mac will be encrypted. Just don’t forget the password, or you won’t be able to restore your device using that backup.
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