The statements are thought to be part of the fall-out of the security spat between China and the US, after five Chinese military officers were charged with hacking computer systems of US companies. Apple was criticised by the Chinese state media in the past in the wake of the revelations by Edward Snowden over US government surveillance.
Apple issued a statement denying that it tracks the location of users. The iPhone uses a mix of GPS, WLAN and cell tower data to locate users as part of functions such as navigation and shopping. While the location of cell towers or hotspots collected from iPhone users is stored on an Apple database, no personal information about Apple users is ever shared with the company.
Furthermore, customers must opt in to the location service before it's activated, also for each app using the location information. They can also turn this off later if they change their mind. The same applies for the Frequent Locations traffic service, which stores the data only on the user's device, in encrypted format, and not in the cloud. It can be switched off also at will.
Finally, Apple denied that it had provided any kind of "backdoor" to its services and user information to a government. Nor has it allowed any government access to its servers, something it "feels very strongly about".
