“Stunned iPhone and iPad owners have only just found out that all of their movements are tracked and stored in a hidden iOS file which gets synced to their PC every time they connect the phone,”

Your Cellphone Has Been Tracking You For Nearly a Decade

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones

The controversy generated as a result of computer researchers discovering a hidden file that allows Apple to track the location of iPhone and iPad users has been treated as a shocking revelation by the media, and yet since October 2001, the FCC has mandated that all wireless carriers track the location of their users down to within 50 feet.

“Stunned iPhone and iPad owners have only just found out that all of their movements are tracked and stored in a hidden iOS file which gets synced to their PC every time they connect the phone,” reports Gadgets and Gizmos. “The name of the file is Consolidated.db and it uses the Apple devices’ GPS function to record your location and the time you were there.”

The secret file was found by computer experts and made public at the recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

The Wall Street Journal expanded on the revelations surrounding Apple on Friday by reporting that Google’s Android smart phones also, “Regularly transmit their locations back to…Google, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.”

Technology writers are seemingly baffled as to why top smart phone producers like Apple and Google are tracking the movements of their users, while lawmakers have also begun asking questions of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

A bizarre initial reaction to the story from some quarters of the media and industry centered around the suggestion that the hidden file was “actually a bug which Apple should be looking to fix,” a theory dismissed almost instantly after it was confirmed other smart phone manufacturers were also tracking their users and that such efforts were “clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations.”

Indeed, as much as a year ago Apple admitted to the fact that it “intermittently” collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours, according to a letter the company sent to U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas),” reports the WSJ.

Google’s HTC Android phones collect location data every few minutes and transmit that information directly to Google several times an hour, including the unique phone identifier, meaning that Google can keep tabs on the movement of a known individual almost constantly. Since people now ubiquitously carry their cellphones everywhere they go, this is akin to having a tracking microchip implanted in your forehead.

Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/your-cellphone-has-been-tracking-you-for-nearly-a-decade.html