Given that Apple now has more money than the US federal reserve, the fine of 3m won ($2,855) is hardly going to break the iBank. But the ruling by South Korea's communications regulator, which has fined Apple for collecting users' location data without permission, could set a worrying precedent for the tech giant.
Photo by Eric Fischer on Flickr. Some rights reserved
As the Guardian reported in April, security researchers discovered a file on iPhones using iOS4 that apparently recorded location with timestamp for up to one year, even when phones were switched off.
Whereas mobile location records, at least in the UK, could previously only be retrieved by police under a court order, this file could be extracted by anyone who jailbroke the phone. Apple would not comment on the claims at the time but subsequently released a patch that stopped the phones writing location data in this form.
South Korea's Communications Commission, Reuters reports, had found loopholes in how both Apple and Google protected user location data, ordering both to encrypt data. But it could have fined as much as 3% of location-related revenues or charged 10m won for collecting personal data without permission.
It's not the first obstacle either company has encountered in South Korea. Apple had to pay out 1m won in June to a lawyer who won a court ruling over Apple's location data storage, and that lawyer went on to lead a suit representing 27,800 iPad and iPhone users who have taken out a class action lawsuit against the firm, which may file next week.
An Apple spokesman in Korea told Reuters: "Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so."
Google has insisted that location data sharing through Android is opt-in, saying in a statement that it is reviewing the KCC's decision.Police had already raided the South Korean offices of Google subsidiary AdMob back in May as part of the investigation.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/aug/03/apple-south-korea-location-data
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