Apple and Google will answer questions about the way their mobile operating systems collect user data at a Senate sub-committee hearing on 10 May. Entitled ‘Protecting Your Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy,’ the meeting will be chaired by Democratic senator, Al Franken.
Franken wrote to Apple last week after it was revealed that the iPhone tracks location data, along with dates and times, and stores it in a database file which is transferred to a Mac or PC when the iPhone is synced. ‘Anyone who gains access to this single file could likely determine the location of the user’s home, the businesses he frequents, the doctors he visits, the schools his children attend, and the trips he has taken over the past months or even a year,’ wrote Franken.
More recently, Massachusetts Representative, Edward Markey, and Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, have written to Apple asking about the data being collected.
The purpose of the sub-committee meeting is to give interested parties, such as the FTC and privacy campaigners, the chance to ask questions and gather information.
In a separate development, a class-action lawsuit has been filed in Florida by two iPhone users, alleging invasion of privacy and computer fraud. The customers allege that Apple ‘is secretly recording and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users’, according to Bloomberg.
