Your iPhone is Tracking You

Recently, some very interesting news came out:

Your iPhone stores a file that contains everywhere you have been with it.

This is becoming a pretty big deal and it is causing a bit of an uproar. Let’s take a look at what’s going on.

How Does it Work?

Instead of using GPS tracking, which can be enabled or disabled, this tracking system uses cell phone towers. The phone triangulates your location based on which cell towers you are nearby and stores this. Unfortunately, this means that you can’t simply turn off the tracking and continue with your life.

The file itself is hidden on your iPhone, but it can be easily accessed.

How Can I Look at the File?

If you want to look at the file, you can use the iPhoneTracker application developed by Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan. When you run it on the computer that you normally sync your iPhone to, it will collect the files and display them for you. You can watch your movement over time or just look at everywhere you’ve been.

To download iPhoneTracker, click here.

How Does This Affect Me?

It really doesn’t do much. As much noise as people are making about this, there is no real security risk that is currently apparent. What it does mean, though, is that in the future, your location data will most likely be readily available; and that is not something that we’re looking forward to.