MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe is backtracking on recent comments that the company is tracking users' locations before and after movies.

In a Tuesday letter to MoviePass members, partners, and employees, Lowe said the app "does not track and has never tracked or collected data on the location of our members at any point when the app is not active."

"In our recent update with Apple, we removed the background tracking capabilities," he said. "MoviePass does not use and has never used this feature."

That proclamation contradicts comments he made during a keynote speech entitled "Data is the New Oil: How will MoviePass Monetize It?" at the Entertainment Finance Forum in Los Angeles on March 2. During the talk, Lowe said MoviePass collects "an enormous amount of information" about its subscribers. Illustrating that point, he added: "we watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards."

Amidst backlash, Lowe now says those statements weren't true. "Through a mix of exuberance about our future and joking around, I mischaracterized how MoviePass locates our members," he wrote in the letter. "I apologize for these comments and the concern they caused."

Lowe went on to say that the app only identifies a person's location in two cases: when they are searching for nearby theatres, or checking into one. "Both events require both the app to be open and for the member to request the action," he wrote.

Meanwhile, during the keynote earlier this month, Lowe said the company is "exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities for our subscribers to enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night." In his note today, Lowe promised they will inform users before making any Privacy Policy changes.

"If, in the future, MoviePass desires to expand how it uses data, we will amend our Privacy Policy and notify our members so that they will be afforded the opportunity to opt- in or opt- out of the MoviePass service," Lowe wrote. "This is what our customers expect, what the law requires, and how we've always handled data."