OTTAWA — A Canadian software developer has created a program that
allows iPhone and iPad users to wipe clean the location history of their
devices — a day after security researchers unleashed a privacy uproar
by revealing that Apple Inc. records the location details in a hidden
file on the user's phone and copies the unencrypted data to the user's
home computer.
Ryan Petrich of Edmonton said Thursday he's
being bombarded with emails and online messages about his new tool
called "Untrackerd." When installed, the program deletes the location
tracking information, held in a hidden file called consolidated.db,
every 30 minutes.
The iPhone developer launched the free
program late Wednesday after news broke that — ever since Apple updated
the devices last year — the new phones have been keeping track of where a
user goes in a secret file, using information gleaned from nearby
cellphone towers and Wi-Fi networks. Locations and time stamps are then
copied to the owner's computer if the two are synchronized.
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