Good morning, it seems as though Senator Al Franken has taken steps to find us all answers as to why Apple has been secretly been collecting location data from every single iOS 4.x.x device.

Here are some questions he has asked Steve Jobs in the letter he sent him:

1. Why does Apple collect and compile this location data? Why did Apple choose to initiate tracking this data in its iOS 4 operating system?
2. Does Apple collect and compile this location data for laptops?
3. How is this data generated? (GPS, cell tower triangulation, Wi-Fi triangulation, etc.)
4. How frequently is a user’s location recorded? What triggers the creation of a record of someone’s location?
5. How precise is this location data? Can it track the users location to 50 m, 100 m, etc.?
6. Why is this data not encrypted? What steps will Apple take to encrypt the data?
7. Why were Apple consumers never affirmatively informed of the collection and retention of their location data in this manner? Why did Apple not seek affirmative consent before doing so?
8. Does Apple believe that this conduct is permissible under the terms of its privacy policy?
9. To whom, if anyone, including Apple, has this data been disclosed? When and why were these disclosures made?

Now, after thinking back, I remember hearing about this, upon further investigation, I uncovered an old article that I wrote (that we later dismissed as untrue) about a leak from inside of Apple that warned of remote relocking and unauthorized data collection. The leakster, Alpha, was later dismissed as telling false information.

However, the remote carrier update leak did turn out to be true, however the remote relocking did not. Also, he mentioned that Apple was also collecting unauthorized location information from every FaceTime call. According to some of our own internal testing, location data is collected when you make a FaceTime call and stored in consolidation.db (the location data database).

Click here to go to the article where some disturbing secrets about the (back then) upcomming iOS 4 update were revealed

Here’s a link to Senator Al Franken’s letter to Steve Jobs

Incoming search terms:

• consolidation db
• consolidate db
• locationgate