Much has been made today about the fact that iPhones evidently collect some location data and store it in your backup files. I’ve only had my iPhone for a few weeks so it might be interesting to see what it’s collected so far.
All the location data for my phone This is all the data on my phone. Although I’ve driven to Ithaca and back with the GPS on, and driven around Rochester with the GPS on, the data seems far too regular and grid like to correspond to anywhere I’ve actually been. There is a cluster of points in and around the town of Auburn NY, even though I haven’t been nearer than about 10 miles from there. There is a small smattering of points along the route between Rochester and Ithaca, but not what you’d call a smoking gun showing where I’ve been.
Zoomed in on Rochester Here I’ve zoomed in on Rochester, and I defy you to find some correlation between the position or size of those dots and where I’ve been since buying the phone, especially where I live.
The regularity of the grid makes me think that either the iPhone data or the analysis program is doing some sort of grouping of the data into regular intervals. Either way, I’m not sweating this.
