Apple aims to – finally – set the record straight about the gathering and use of location information by iOS devices. The entire Q&A can be found below. 
 
 Apple starts off by stating that it has never tracked, and will never track the location of a customer’s iPhone. The company goes on to say it’s partly to blame for any ‘confusion’ about it, though, because users haven’t been ‘educated’ to fully understand the technical issues with providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information. 
 
 That said, the company did identify several ‘bugs’ which it says it will fix shortly. 
 
 As we posited earlier, Apple says it’s merely maintaining a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending geo-tagged locations, both anonymously and encrypted. 
 
 According to the Cupertino company, the location data that researchers spotted on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which it adds can be more than one hundred miles away from the device in question. 
 
 Apple says it simply can not identify the source of this data (i.e. your location). 
 
 Nevertheless, the company says it will release a free iOS software update sometime in the next few weeks that reduces the size of the Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, start encrypting and refrain from backing up this cache and delete it entirely when Location Services is turned off by the user. 
 
 Apple admits that this storing the cache for such a long time was a bug that will be fixed, ultimately recognizing that this was a valid source for concern. Another bug resulted in the iPhone continually updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database even after the user turned off Location Services on his phone. 
 
 Earlier this week, a class action suit was filed, accusing Apple of invasion of privacy and computer fraud and of “secretly recording movements of iPhone and iPad users.” 
 
 French, German, Italian and South Korean regulators had also started investigating the alleged location collection feature on Apple devices following publication of the researchers report. 
 
 Does Apple’s response sound credible to you? 
 
 Apple Q&A on Location Data: ||||| Is Apple tracking your every move via the iPhone and iPad? A Wednesday blog post published on O'Reilly Radar claims that devices running iOS 4 are gathering location and storing it in an unencrypted manner. 
 
 "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," wrote Pete Warden, founder of the Data Science Toolkit, and Alasdair Allan, a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter. 
 
 The data is being stored to a file known as "consolidated.db," which includes latitude-longitude coordinates and a timestamp. 
 
 "The coordinates aren't always exact, but they are pretty detailed. There can be tens of thousands of data points in this file, and it appears the collection started with iOS 4, so there's typically around a year's worth of information at this point," Warden and Allan wrote. 
 
 The duo speculated that the data collection is erratic. Update times vary and might be triggered by traveling between cells or activity on the phone itself. 
 
 But while this data is being stored on your phones and iOS devices, Warden and Allan acknowledge that there is no "evidence to suggest this data is leaving your custody"aka, being sent to Apple. There is also "no immediate harm that would seem to come from the availability of this data." 
 
 "But why this data is stored and how Apple intends to use itor notare important questions that need to be explored," they wrote. "The cell phone companies have always had this data, but it takes a court order to access it. Now this information is sitting in plain view, unprotected from the world. Beyond this, there is even more data that we have yet to look at in depth." 
 
 As one commenter on the blog post pointed out, this data collection was first discussed last year. Digital forensic specialist Christopher Vance wrote on his blog that the location data is used as part of iAds, in addition to apps that require location-based data. In a later blog post, however, Vance said "these points are being used not in direct connection with iAds but on your device itself." 
 
 Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but another commenter pointed to a July 2010 letter that Apple penned to House lawmakers about its location-based services. 
 
 Apple insisted that its location-based services exist only to enhance the user experience and that the company does not activate these services until it has received express consent from users. It collects data "anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services," Bruce Sewell, general counsel and senior vice president of legal and government affairs at Apple, wrote in a letter to Reps. Edward Markey and Joe Barton. 
 
 "Apple is committed to giving our customers clear notice and control over their information, and we believe our products do this in a simple and elegant way," he said. 
 
 The inquiry occured after Apple updated its privacy policy to say that it could "collect, use, and share precise location data, including real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device." 
 
 In the letter, Apple said four Apple devices collected geographic location data: the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G. To a lesser extent, older iPhone models, the iPad Wi-Fi, the iPod touch, Mac computers with Snow Leopard, and Safari 5 also collect similar information. 
 
 Apple started collecting location-based data and Wi-Fi information in January 2008. 
 
 "Apple has always provided its customers with the ability to control the location-based service capabilities of their devices," Sewell said. "In fact, Apple now provides customers even greater control over such capabilities for devices running the current version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 4." 
 
 With iOS 4, customers can pick and choose the apps with which they do not want to share location information, even if the global, location-based capabilities on their device are turned on, Apple said. An arrow icon, meanwhile, alerts iOS 4 users if an app is using or has recently used location-based information. 
 
 Warden and Allan seemed to take issue with the fact that the data collected was easily accessible. They built an app that helps you look at your own data, and suggested that concerned users encrypt their backups via iTunes. To do so, click on your device within iTunes and then check "Encrypt iPhone Backup" under the "Options" area. 
 
 A more detailed look at Warden and Allan's investigation is in the video below. 
 
 The news is also interesting in light of a case out of Michigan where police officers have been accused of secretly extracting data from peoples' cell phones during routine stops. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has urged the Michigan State Police (MSP) to release information about the alleged practice. 
 
 Editor's Note: This story was updated at 2:30pm Eastern with additional info from Vance. 
 
 For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius. 
 
 For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag. ||||| Update, 4/27/11 — Apple has posted a response to questions raised in this report and others. 
 
 By Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden 
 
 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. 
 
 In the following video, we discuss how the file was discovered and take a look at the data contained in the file. Further details are posted below. 
 
 What information is being recorded? 
 
 All iPhones appear to log your location to a file called “consolidated.db.” This contains latitude-longitude coordinates along with a timestamp. The coordinates aren’t always exact, but they are pretty detailed. There can be tens of thousands of data points in this file, and it appears the collection started with iOS 4, so there’s typically around a year’s worth of information at this point. Our best guess is that the location is determined by cell-tower triangulation, and the timing of the recording is erratic, with a widely varying frequency of updates that may be triggered by traveling between cells or activity on the phone itself. 
 
 Who has access to this data? 
 
 Don’t panic. As we discuss in the video, there’s no immediate harm that would seem to come from the availability of this data. Nor is there evidence to suggest this data is leaving your custody. But why this data is stored and how Apple intends to use it — or not — are important questions that need to be explored. 
 
 Related books by Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden 
 
 
 
 What are the implications of this location data? 
 
 The cell phone companies have always had this data, but it takes a court order to access it. Now this information is sitting in plain view, unprotected from the world. Beyond this, there is even more data that we have yet to look at in depth. 
 
 For example, in my own case I (Alasdair) discovered a list of hundreds of thousands of wireless access points that my iPhone has been in range of during the last year. 
 
 How can you look at your own data? 
 
 We have built an application that helps you look at your own data. It’s available at petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker along with the source code and deeper technical information. 
 
 What can you do about this? 
 
 An immediate step you can take is to encrypt your backups through iTunes (click on your device within iTunes and then check “Encrypt iPhone Backup” under the “Options” area). 
 
 Related:
– Apple finally responded to the accusations that it was tracking iPhone users’ locations today, saying it “has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.” In a statement, which you can read on TechCrunch, the company explained that it was actually keeping a log not of the phone’s location, but of the location of WiFi hotspots and cell towers, “some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone.” The data is used to more quickly triangulate users’ position when they use location-based services, and is sent to Apple anonymously. But the company did admit to some “bugs” in the software—like that it keeps collecting data even after you’ve turned Location Services off, and that it stored years of data, instead of the week's worth it needs—and promised an iOS update to fix them. And, just to add some positive news to the cycle, it also announced that the rumored white iPhone will be available tomorrow, Time reports.