Re: geolocation and data retention

On 20 Apr 2011, at 16:01, Karl Dubost wrote:

> Geolocation and data retention.
> 
>    Today at Where 2.0 Pete Warden and I will announce
>    the discovery that your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is
>    regularly recording the position of your device into
>    a hidden file. Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device
>    has been storing a long list of locations and time
>    stamps. We're not sure why Apple is gathering this
>    data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database
>    is being restored across backups, and even device
>    migrations.

The location traces that can be easily extracted from my iPhone backup certainly *are* impressive -- I sort of hadn't expected to carry around a rather detailed trace of my movements over the last 9-12 months.  "Creepy" is the most friendly word that comes to mind for this feature.

(FWIW, I play around with foursquare, I geotag photos, I archive GPS traces of hikes and runs, and I routinely use many location-based services...)

-- 
Thomas Roessler, W3C  <tlr@w3.org>  (@roessler)

Received on Wednesday, 20 April 2011 15:56:26 UTC