TBH this will have more of an impact in divorces or employment tribunals. Employers will know if people have actually being travelling as reported. Ex wives will use it to track down mistresses or worse. Though if it is your own phone there will less chance that they can legally access this data.

It is very different. As soon as your phone is lost or stolen the data can be accessed by anyone who has got hold of your phone. Or anybody (husband, wife, friend, parents, colleague, employer) can get it even without you knowing...

The data on the phone or the pc is NOT encrypted so you believe wrong...
Saying that data is just as vulnerable when it is with mobile provider as on your phone is nonsense...

It is more disturbing if you realise that apparently yesterday was the day that Skynet became self aware!

So what happens if you want to sell your old phone on?

They get to know where you have been or get into trouble because of where you have been.

Or if you've got half an ounce of sense, you do a hard reset on the phone before you sell it on, which wipes the user partition on the phone which is where the data is stored in iOS 4.

As to accessing the data, nobody has yet shown that someone can pinch your phone and just pull the data off it. It may be possible with technical skill, but thats not what your average street villain has. What can be easily accessed is the backup data, which I expect will switch to being encrypted by default in the next update to iTunes.

Should the data be captured. No, IMO. Is this something that will need fixing? Yes. Is it a tricky fix? No. Is it the data protection apocalypse? Get a bloody grip. How about a reasoned, calm assessment of risk rather than coming up with 'worst case' scenarios then running round waving our arms in the air? Leave that to the Daily Express.

Also, let's not forget anyone who has an iPhone and a mobile me account has the ability to remote wipe it from any Pc or other idevice.

Reboots don't count.

In fact there could be occasions where it comes in handy. If you need to show that you have been somewhere or were not in a particular area at a certain time.

According to mine, I've been in Cambridge and Norwich, which I haven't. So either my phone has been off on unauthorised travels, or the GPS data is not wholly accurate or reliable.

Or you could get someone to take your phone on a journey whilst you are doing more illicit things elsewhere.

It's not GPS, and no it isn't. Mine seems to think I've spent time in the middle of nowhere in central Wales, which is definitely not true. It appears to get more accurate the more samples it gets in an area, so it's more use for saying 'you spend most of your time in this area' than as a specific tracking mechanism for a given date and time.

Jon

Do you have globe trotting mice in your home?

No - but I suspect the cats may be plotting something.

They would, if they could organise. Personally I think the ducks are really behind it all.

Update : Android phones do actually store location data in a similar way, but the database is size limited so as new data is added old data is purged. This limits it's usefulness as a tracking mechanism. Some speculation is going on that the fact the iPhone database isn't purged is a bug, as there is code to do the purging but it's never called by the OS.

You have not met my cat then. She's a genuine thinking cat - she knows, for example, how to get the cat flap open when it's locked. She worked that one out. She is plotting something big. I know it.