Apple has made available the promised update to iOS which limits the extent to which an iPhone or iPad 3G stores location data.
iOS 4.3.3 reduces the amount of data which is cached to one week, and the data file is no longer synchronised with a Mac or PC when the device is connected. When Location Services is switched off the cache is cleared and no new data is collected.
The data file is not encrypted on the device after the update, which supports iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, and the third and fourth generation iPod touch. It’s not available for the iPhone 3G.
The iPhone location data file was discovered by two researchers who presented their findings to the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco on 20 April. It was subsequently discovered that Google’s Android OS also stores location data.
This led to criticism from privacy campaigners and the intervention of US politicians. Both Apple and Google have been asked to attend a US Senate sub-committee hearing next week.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital last week, Steve Jobs asserted that part of the reason for the controversy over location data was the industry’s failure to talk to its customers. ‘As new technology comes into the society there is a period of adjustment and education,’ he said. ‘We haven’t–as an industry–done a very good job educating people, I think, as to some of the more subtle things going on here.’
