Apple faces data protection scrutiny

Apple is facing scrutiny from data protection regulators after analysts reported that the company's devices track and store data on the movements of iPhone and iPad users.

A report by O'Reilly Radar said Apple's devices log latitude-longitude coordinates along with the time of visits to locations across the globe. The data is stored by Apple's iOS 4 operating system for the iPhone and iPad 3G.

The findings by Alasdair Allan, a senior research fellow in astronomy at the University of Exeter in England, who co-wrote the study with Pete Warden, were posted on the website owned by O'Reilly Media, a California-based publisher that organises trade conferences.

As the information appears to be compiled using information from mobile phone masts rather than the device’s GPS capability, it cannot be switched off as long as the phone is receiving a network signal. Such information is usually only accessible to mobile networks, or to police forces if they obtain a court order.

Regulators in the German state of Bavaria said a preliminary investigation will look into whether Apple violated privacy rules and consider legal or regulatory remedies, said Thomas Kranig, director of the Bavarian Agency for the Supervision of Data Protection.

"We're going to ask whether it's true that these locations are being saved, who has access to this data, what the data is being used for - and why iPhone users don't have this information," Mr Kranig said.

However, security expert Conor Flynn said there may be little that consumers can do, as the collection of location-based data is provided for in the end user licence agreement (Eula) that iOS4 users sign up to. "Apple aren’t doing anything that they can be pursued for,” he said.

However, it opens up the possibility that the file could be accessed by a third party, and a user’s movements could be monitored.

Data protection authorities in Ireland said they had not yet contacted Apple on the matter but expected the collection of such information would be addressed in an upcoming document due to published by the Europe-wide umbrella group for data protection bodies. Apple has not yet commented on the matter.

Data protection has been a contentious issue for US media companies in Germany. Google and Facebook have faced scrutiny from regulators over how they collect and store data on users' searches and purchases and, in Google's case, for taking pictures of streets and homes without the permission of owners. Street View map customers were offered an option last year to block images of their homes before the service was released in 20 German cities.

Additional reporting: Bloomberg