It's also clear to me that, as BatBoy (and Apple) say, data is sent to Apple. Apple say that they cannot identify the source of that data.

Well, at least we have now established, despite Ian's spluttering, that the data is sent to Apple. The tracking that people are concerned about occurs on the phone and its linked PC and may fairly easily be accessed by third parties. This is the issue that Apple say they will address. Good.

Along the lines of what Ian said- a nicely dishonest interpretation of what actually happens.

But that's getting to be expected

It's sent from the phone and only your current location. It isn't identifiable data.

Android does exactly the same.

Current cell towers and access points. To help build up a map of approximate locations which is used on the map application until the GPS chip had got a lock on.

It's a form of ephemeris data. Look that up.

But unless that data is contains your phone number or itunes account then it isn't really a lot of use for tracking?

With any location based service you're going to need to share your approximate location with someone for them to tell you what is available in your area.

It's simple, you switch of location services and it then stops.

Do you even know what location based services are? you can't get information on the nearest restaurant or bus stop if you don't send back your location.

What Apple and Google are doing is building up a map of cell networks, access points to provide a rapid GPS lock on. Sending back some very approximate location data (which can't be linked to you) isn't a big deal.

If you could tell somebody where you were but didn't tell them who you were then that isn't considered privacy invasion surely?

at least we have now established, despite Ian's spluttering, that the data is sent to Apple.

That is a lie, bordering on trolling - something you have form for in this forum.

A couple of times a day opt-out anonymised data is sent to Apple for it skyhook clone (something that Apple asks consent for at set up). This has never been in dispute, despite F-Secure's bluster and your Battyesque comprehension skills.

The data in consolidated.db is received from Apple (last week I was in High Wycombe needing to navigate around a bunch of unfamiliar areas. The first time it located me, my phone took a few seconds. Thereafter it was as near to instant as makes no odds, something GPS can't do - that is what the database is for).

Again, Read. Learn

BTW, it turns out the reason Apple's file has so much data is that they chose a file size limit (2mb) rather than a time limit for pruning.

2mb is a LOT of essentially text data. So although Apple calls it a bug, more realistically it was a heuristic error in Apples "How do we limit the file size to something manageable" reasoning. There was no programming fault a such, it was just a choice that came from a particular point of view - cache size, rather than data retention (and no, batty, they aren't the same thing).

But unless that data is contains your phone number or itunes account then it isn't really a lot of use for tracking?

True. But that's not what BatBoy asserted. He just said that data was sent from the PC to Apple; it is.

It concerns me that a mod is accusing another user of trolling when he is merely reporting facts about which some people have concerns. Whether those concerns are justified or not is another matter. For someone such as Ian to accuse all and sundry of trolling doesn't matter; when a moderator starts doing so it is more serious.