Apple’s Location Data Collection Probed in South Korea
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Tom Kellermann, chief technology officer at AirPatrol Corp. and a member of U.S. President Barack Obama's commission on cyber security, discusses user location technology used by mobile-device companies like Apple Inc. and Google Inc. Kellermann speaks from Washington with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
Apple Inc. (AAPL) is being investigated by South Korea’s communications regulator to determine if it is breaking the law by saving data on the location of iPhone users.
The Korea Communications Commission asked Apple how often information is collected and saved, and whether users have a choice over whether it is saved or deleted, the commission said in an e-mailed statement today. Apple must explain why such data is saved on devices and if it’s stored on the company’s servers.
Steve Park, a Seoul-based spokesman for Apple, declined to comment.
The commission also said it will form a team to study how to better protect smartphone users’ information and privacy.
Apple has been investigated by French, German and Italian privacy regulators since analysts reported the company’s devices track and store data about the movements of iPhone and iPad users.
Apple’s iOS 4 operating system for the iPhone and iPad 3G logs latitude-longitude coordinates along with the time of the visit, according to a study posted on the website owned by O’Reilly Media, a Sebastopol, California-based publisher that organizes technology trade conferences.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jun Yang in Seoul at jyang180@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net.
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