Why is Apple Tracking You?

Apple needs your data to build its own location database for use with geo-location apps and for diagnostics (where dropped calls happen etc).

Apple Is Tracking You To Build Something Very Valuable: Its Location Database

TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld, Apr 21, 2011

iPhone tracking Your iPhone tracks you everywhere you go, and so do most phones these days. You knew that already. The reason this is a big story now is because it turns out that for the past 10 months Apple has been keeping your location data on a file in your iPhone itself where someone who knows how to get it, and has possession of your phone, could find it and figure out where you've been. For most people this is never going to be an issue, but for anyone involved in a lawsuit or nasty divorce, it is one more thing lawyers will be getting a subpoena for. It's bad data retention policy and Apple could and should change it with the next update to iOS.

But what is Apple doing with your location data anyway? It needs your data to build its own location database for use with geo-location apps and for diagnostics (it helps analyze where dropped calls happen the most, for instance). Apple already explained all of this back in July, 2010 when general counsel Bruce Sewell responded to questions from Congress about its location-tracking policies (letter embedded below). In that letter, Apple revealed that it had replaced the location databases it was using previously from Google and SkyHook Wireless with its own.

Read more.

This post from Wired has a more detailed explanation of how Apple collects and uses the location data.