Many Apple device owners have been up in arms after it was confirmed that Apple iPhones (and iPads that are 3G-enabled) are being tracked — at least since the update to iOS 4.
The tracking feature was discovered Pete Warden and Alisdai Allan, creating an open-source application called iPhone Tracker, which can map the information on a user’s iPhone or 3G-ready iPad. They found the movement tracking almost by accident, and they hypothesized that the data is readily available on users’ machine — in a very readable form.
Opinion is split, whilst many are shocked to learn that their iOS device is tracking them, some were excited to download the iPhone Tracker application to see how accurate the location data was.
If you are someone that was shocked that location data was being collected without you permission, there is a way to disable it. Untrackerd is a utility that can be installed on your iPhone, which will then run as a background process cleaning the database file that stored location data.
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The only problem is that it requires a jailbroken device.
According to the tool’s description, Untrackerd is:
‘A package installs a daemon (process that can run in the background) to clean consolidated.db file) No new icons are added to your homescreen. There are no options to configure.”
We don’t recommend you jailbreak your device as it can void your warranty and potentially leave your device vulnerable, but if you have already unlocked your iDevice, you will be able to download the Untrackerd tool for free from the Cydia Store.
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