Your iPhone's watching you. Should you care?

A peek at location data stored on an iPhone.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Researchers announced today that they found what look like secret files on the iPhone that track user location and store it on the device, without the permission of the device owner. It's unclear what the data is used for and why Apple has been collecting it in iOS products that carry a 3G antenna for nearly a year now.
Alasdair Allan, senior research fellow in astronomy at the University of Exeter, and writer Pete Warden, who discovered the log file and created a tool that lets users see a visualization of that data, say there's no evidence of that information being sent to Apple or anybody else. Even so, the pair note that the data is unencrypted, giving anyone with access to your phone or computer where backups may be stored a way to grab the data and extrapolate a person's whereabouts and routines.
To help users understand more about the data that's being collected, what the risks are, and what they can do about it, CNET has put together this FAQ.
Who are the researchers and how did they find this?
Warden, who used to work at Apple (though not on the iPhone), and Allan had been collaborating on some location data visualization projects, including a visualization of radiation levels over time in Japan after the earthquake, when Allan discovered the file on an iPhone. "After we dug further and visualized the extracted data, it became clear that there was a scary amount of detail on our movements," they wrote in a blog post.

Researcher: iPhone, iPad track users' whereabouts

A map showing location-tracking information from the iPhone.

(Credit: O'Reilly Radar)

Apple iPhones and 3G iPads running iOS 4 might be tracking their owners' movements, a new report from O'Reilly Radar claims.
Alasdair Allan, senior research fellow in astronomy at the University of Exeter, and writer Pete Warden say they have found evidence that the iPhone, 3G iPad, and backups on users' computers contain detailed location information, including latitude, longitude, and time stamps, that show where the mobile devices have been. In addition, the information is "unencrypted and unprotected, and it's on any machine you've synched with your iOS device," they claim.

Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves

 A hidden file in iOS 4 is regularly recording the position of devices.
Today at Where 2.0 Pete Warden and I will announce the discovery that your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file. Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps. We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations.

A visualization of iPhone location data. Click to enlarge.

The presence of this data on your iPhone, your iPad, and your backups has security and privacy implications. We've contacted Apple's Product Security team, but we haven't heard back.
What makes this issue worse is that the file is unencrypted and unprotected, and it's on any machine you've synched with your iOS device. It can also be easily accessed on the device itself if it falls into the wrong hands. Anybody with access to this file knows where you've been over the last year, since iOS 4 was released.