iPhone consolidated.db file, should you concern about it?

The iPhone users need to be a little nervous since the discovery of consolidated.db file stored on iPhone, a database claimed to track the location of phone over time. The Wall Street Journal revealed that even though the Location Services are turned off, iPhone are still collecting our general location data. So should you care about this? Well, let's look into it further.

What is iPhone consolidated.db?

iPhone consolidated.db is a sqlite3 database storing location data in it. Many are reporting that this file stores the detailed tracking information. Wall Street revealed that the collection of location data is not disabled although all Location Services are completely disabled. According to CNET report, the iPhone consolidated.db file contains only the approximations about your iPhone or iPad 3G location. The file attempts to find the nearest cell towers and Wi-Fi towers and stores those towers' locations. The file doesn't track specific movement, information on GPS location, or longitude and latitude of your device. Depending on the tower locations number in your area, the information consolidated.db gathers can have miles of variance.

Should you concern about it?

The tests performed by Wall Street journal have confirmed that the data stored in a file called consolidated.db on your iPhone seems not to be transmitted to Apple or any other recipient. This is corroborated by John Gruber explaining that the stored tracking information within consolidated.db file actually is a bug, not a design of the iOS operating system. The consolidated.db file is intended to store the data temporarily and not designed to store all historical location data of the users.

What does Apple say?

So far, Apple still doesn't write an formal update about this issue, so the suspicion from iPhone users and critics will likely continue to raise about the consolidated.db file.