We Translate Apple's Q&A On Location Data So You Don't Have To

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?

Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

We don’t know where you take your iPhone.

We’re not Google evil.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?

Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

We’re mildly sorry we confused you there for a second. Now please calm down, and sorry for not asking you to calm down before there was any reason for you to have to calm down.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?

The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

We don’t log your location, merely the location you and others connect to the Web or send an SMS or whatever. It helps us calculate your location next time you connect more rapidly and stuff. We don’t even really want to know where you hang out.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?

The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

We don’t store all the data we gather on your phone, but we do back part of it up on your computer. It’s innocent data, we swear, but we’ll stop backing it up soon anyway.

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

Why would we even want to know you regularly go shopping at the local WalMart – or one of those Microsoft retail stores they ripped off from us?

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?

This data is not the iPhone’s location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

Ok, we admit we kept location data that could potentially determine your whereabouts for a long time, but that was a bug. We already fired some engineers over it so it’s not really a problem anymore. And we’ll cut the time we keep the data down to a week, mmkay?

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?

It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

Whoops! You got us there. Look the other way while we fix the glitch.

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

Before some researcher does some researching again and you start whining about their findings, yes we collect other types of location data, but we’ll use it to build a truly magical service by the time you forget this whole location tracking ordeal ever took place.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?

We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

We haven’t identified any bugs that automatically forward all your location data to your mom, wife or employer. Yet.

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?

Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Since you asked; we love you and mean you no harm. We were first to mean you no harm, too.

Software Update

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

– reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
– ceases backing up this cache, and
– deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

Again, we’re not evil. But we’ll fix some bugs that were uncovered by people other than us just to make sure you will forever remember we aren’t evil. The best part of it? We’re not even going to charge you for it. Look, shiny white iPhones underway!