The infidelity App; How iPhone can secretly keep track on love cheats.(News)

Byline: Daily Mail Reporter

IF the thought of venturing out without your mobile fills you with dread, make sure you've got nothing to hide.

Owners of iPhones are having their locations and movements secretly tracked and stored in a file that could be seen by a jealous spouse, it has emerged. Researchers have discovered that the Apple device saves the user's latitude and longitude, along with a time and date stamp, whenever the phones are searching for a network or trying to connect to the internet.

It then copies the data to the owner's computer whenever the two are synchronised. This means anyone who stole the phone or gained access to the computer it is paired with could build a detailed picture of the owner's movements.

The previously unknown data store - described as the 'infidelity App' - was exposed by two British software developers.

Pete Warden, one of those who discovered the file, said: 'Apple has made it possible for almost anybody - a jealous spouse, a private detective - with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you've been.'

Mr Warden and his fellow researcher Alasdair Allan have set up a web page giving away a programme that lets Apple users check what location data their phone is storing. Other GPS-enabled smartphones do not have the same function, they said.

Although mobile phone networks record the locations of customers' handsets, this information is only available to police and other government agencies under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. In contrast, if a thief were to steal an iPhone, he could extract the location database directly.

And anyone with access to an iPhone user's computer could run Mr Warden and Mr Allan's application and see a map of the phone's movements.

Using the programme, they can also view the phone's location on a specific date, see all the locations a user has visited with their phone, or create an animated map of its movements.

It is understood the tracking started with Apple's iOS 4 update, published last June, meaning some phones could contain almost a year's data on their owners.

The iPhone records the information whether or not the user agrees to being tracked. Apple has not revealed whether the function can be disabled or why it installed it on its iPhones.

In an open letter to Apple boss Steve Jobs, Simon Davies, director of campaign group Privacy International, has asked for the file's purpose to be made clear.

'Location is highly sensitive because it can indicate where someone's home is, where they work, what church or political rally they attend,' he says.

'In the wrong hands this information can be very dangerous.'

FACEBOOK BURGLARY WARNING

MORE than half of children who use social networking sites are putting their families at risk of being burgled by sharing holiday plans online.

Thieves can trace their addresses in minutes because one in three has insufficient security settings on Facebook and Twitter, a study has warned.

And nearly half of all young social network users are 'friends' with people they don't know and have never met.

Researchers found many young users posted updates such as 'packing my cases', 'has landed' and 'going on holiday on Friday'.

And by cross-referencing other information, such as the user's hometown or school, they were able to get their address from online databases within minutes.

CAPTION(S):

Secret surveillance: Red, orange and purple blobs on the map show the locations and phone use of an iPhone owner over a period of time