This why the recent iPhone location data "scare" doesn't make sense to me. The wireless carriers must have MUCH more extensive location data on a much larger user base. I understand the growing concern over privacy issues as more companies begin aggregating user data etc, and I'm glad that people are (hopefully) becoming more aware of this issue, but shouldn't we react a bit more proportionately to corporate violations of user privacy?
The iPhone scare was about the availability of data. If someone finds/steals your iPhone they can with little effort recover the GPS data. As oppose to federal bureau or phone company who are, at least theoretically, bound by law.
Except that it is GPS data ... the file "consolidated.db" does contain a list of (your) latitude + longitude + timestamp -- and when this was discovered, that file contained location data for the last 10 months (probably since iOS 4 was released).
This data is indeed used by Apple to build a database of Wifi hotspots and cell towers, along with their locations, doing this to improve their location services when GPS data is not available (the first iPhone could show you your location by doing triangulation on the cell towers nearby).
The fact of the matter is that if you can get your hands on such an iPhone (without a security fix, which I'm sure it's available by now) - you can find out where that iPhone has been.
You know, a simple search on Google could have told you the answer to this -- now you've just added noise.
Can you point to a page that says there are indeed latitude + longitude + timestamp that follow a user's location?
From what I've read, the database was a cache of nearby cell tower and wifi hotspot locations from Apple's servers, not the GPS-calculated (or even tower-triangulated) location of the user.
All comes to the same end: random guy, jealous colleague, nosy employer or landlord snatches your phone while you're not looking and it only takes a few minutes to upload a very thorough archive of "places stephen_g's iPhone has been".
They can get a very rough idea of the places you've been. But if they've stolen your phone, getting access to a list of cell towers you've been near isn't very much of a breach compared to all of your email, bookmarks, facebook, twitter, all of your contacts, etc. The whole thing is a very silly argument and Apple has already addressed it; so lets stop spreading FUD, please.
What about people outside the US? Before Apple, the FBI couldn't track them. Now that the phones are sending their gps tracks home every 12 hours, they probably can...
