US: Legislation to prevent Location Data collection

New York, Jun 16: Two senators in United States on Wednesday, Jun 15 introduced legislation aiming to crack companies from collecting smartphone and tablet consumer's location data.

The legislation, titled the 'Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011' introduced by Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal, is expected to prevent the companies like Apple and Google from collecting users location data through their products. The new legislation was introduced in wake of media reports that the iPhone, iPad and Android devices collected users location date without their concern.

The legislation is aimed to give people the right to know what geolocation data is being collected about them and ensure they give their consent before it"s shared with others.

"Geolocation technology gives us incredible benefits, but the same information that allows emergency responders to locate us when we"re in trouble is not necessarily information all of us want to share with the rest of the world," District of Minnesota senator Franken said.

Earlier, A US panel grilled Google and Apple officials about the reports of consumer's date collection and sharing that data with third parties. During the hearing, both companies defended the allegations and pointed out that they can't control what third-party app makers do.

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