southofenglandAccording to the Guardian, researchers have found out that the iPhone stores information regarding a user’s location in a secret file.

It does this without asking for permission, and when you connect your phone to a computer, the file is even copied to the local machine.

The recording of this kind of data allegedly started in June, 2010 when Apple rolled out the IOS 4 update.

Also, not just phones are affected by this, also the iPad tablets.

Pete Warden, one of the researchers said: “Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you’ve been.”

If you’re curious what kind of data has already been recorded on your device, there is an app which lets you map the recorded information.

And while the recording of geo-location via network providers has already become a common reality, the iPhone seems to be the only phone which directly saves your whereabouts to its memory, ready to be retrieved and analysed at any given time.

Privacy

All of this has raised great concern among users and groups like “Privacy International”, the human rights “watchdog” organization focused on privacy intrusions by government and businesses.

On the other hand many users don’t seem to mind, like @sifutweety who says: “Okay, privacy issues, but finding out I have a map of all my travels over the past two years is sorta rad.”

In the age of over-sharing, there are those who try to protect privacy and those who consider themselves “post-privacy“.

Both camps are increasingly polarized.

And somehow, John Brunner comes to mind: “For all the claims one hears about the liberating impact of the data-net, the truth is that it’s wished on most of us a brand-new reason for paranoia.” –John Brunner, “The Shockwave Rider”, 1975.

The Geo-Data Craze

Although it’s tempting to weave conspiracy theories from these recent findings about the iPhone, (imagine your passport had such a mechanism!) it is more likely that Apple is simply trying to prepare for the growing geo-location driven advertisement craze.

So far, Apple has refused to comment on all of this.

We have seen the Color App that uses geo-location data to connect people who are taking pictures at the same location.

There are wild promises of new forms of social networking like proximity-based dating, etc.

But what does it really tell you about a person if you know where they are? Seriously.

If you are a stalker, policeman, rescue personnel or anyone else “professionally” interested in knowing where a particular person’s body is currently situated, okay.

But even, then.

I remember a part from William Gibson’s recent “Zero History” where a character drops his phone, which records his location at all times, into a stroller of a bodyguarded Russian stroller, resulting in much confusion (and physical) pain for those who are tracking him.

But again, what do the physical coordinates really tell us about a person?

Personally, I’m always overcome by a sense of isolation when I see people broadcasting their location.

It’s as if, instead of just being where we are and doing what we are doing, we become obsessed with “sharing it” – an euphemism for the 21st century form of digital self-consciousness: There is never just doing or being somewhere. If it can’t be shared, it’s non-existent. It has to be photographed, geo-tagged, broadcasted. We need to have proof!

It’s the hyperbole of taking pictures on a trip.

Instead of experiencing what’s happening, we’re already removing ourselves from the experience while we’re still in it.

Next time you make photos of your food or “check in” to a pub, think about it.