(WICHITA, Kan.) — Smart phones can do a lot more than just make calls, check emails, and allow you to update Twitter and Facebook. According to recent reports, the most popular ones, iPhones and Android, also save and record it's users locations.
The report written by researchers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan says that the locations, including the lattitude and longitude are stored within a secret file within the iPhone. Then when the device is synced with a computer, it's transferred to the computer. Their research says that none of these files are encrypted and anyone can access them. This info, though, is not sent to Apple.
Other research found that Android phones send that same information back to Google several times an hour.
Both companies are not saying what that information is being stored for. But technology bloggers are speculating, with some saying the tech giants are collecting information about where their customers are using their phones and others saying it's to sell that information to advertisers.
