Two men have filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple over the location-based services provided in iOS 4. The practice puts users at a serious risk of privacy invasions and stalking, they argued.
"Apple collects the location information covertly, surreptitiously, and in violations of law," according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Florida district court.
The issue of iPhone tracking made headlines last week when two researchers published a blog post that said iOS 4+ devices collect a users' location in an unencrypted file known as "consolidated.db." It's no secret that Apple collects this data to serve up location-based services, but the researchers were concerned that this information is stored in an insecure manner, and transferred to a user's PC when they sync their iOS device.
Apple has not issued an official statement on the matter, but when a user emailed Jobs about it and mentioned that his Android phone does not collect location information, Jobs reportedly responded: "Oh yes they do. We don't track anyone. The info circulating around is false."
That statement did not appease Vikram Ajjampur of Florida or William Devito of New York, who filed suit over the reports.
The duo claim that "users of Apple products have ... no way to prevent Apple from collecting this information because even if users disable the iPhone and iPad GPS components, Apple's tracking system remains fully functional."
In a test, PCMag found that turning off location services appeared to stop the collection of data, though this occured over a 45-minute period and Apple has not revealed when exactly it collects data from peoples' phones.
Ajjampur and Devito, however, who own an iPhone and 3G iPad, respectively, said Apple is collecting information about which even employers and spouses might not be aware. Users are being "personally tracked just as if by a tracking device for which a court-ordered warrant could ordinarily be required," they said.
The duo want Apple to disable this type of tracking in the next release of iOS.
Last year, Apple updated its privacy policy to say that it could "collect, use, and share precise location data, including real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device." That prompted a congressional inquiry, and Apple said in response that it collects data "anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services."
Ajjampur and Devito argued that "Apple's privacy policy contained deceptive misrepresentations that are material and are likely to and did deceive ordinary consumers ... into believing that their every move would not be tracked by Apple and then stored for future use in an Apple-designed database."
Apple should have had a "single sentence disclosure" rather than adding a line to a lengthy terms of service, they said.
Apple has "a duty not to stalk consumers. But that is exactly what Apple has done and continues to do," the lawsuit said. It's like a Trojan Horse that "delivered products to spy on plaintiffs and class members and to sell their personal information at a future date."
This is just the latest lawsuit to stem from press reports about Apple privacy-related matters.
In January, a California man filed suit, accusing Apple of producing devices that allow ad networks to track a user's app activity. A month later, another man filed a similar suit against Apple for transmitting user information to third parties without permission. And earlier this month, a Pennsylvania man filed suit against Apple for what he considered to be the "unlawful exploitation" of children (and their parents' wallets) via Cupertino's in-app purchasing policies.
For more, see Apple's iPhone Tracking: What You Need to Know.