EXCLUSIVE: Apple Secretly Tracking iPhone IMEI and Usage (with proof)
As I sit here applying a new layer of Reynolds tin foil to my international hat of conspiracy, its been proven that Apple tracks iPhone usage and tracks IEMI numbers of all their iPhones worldwide.
Context & Ripple Effects
UNEASYsilence's claim lands the same day 9 to 5 Mac independently asks whether Apple is collecting iPhone usage data, turning a fringe observation into a live question about what the newly shipped handset reports home. The purported mechanism is specific: a hidden string inside Apple's own Weather.app and Stocks.app that transmits each phone's IMEI, IP address and even stock-quote preferences back to the company.
The finding rides on two weeks of escalating iPhone scrutiny — including a demonstrated root-privilege attack that reached mail and other data stores through a webpage — so the burden of proof Apple carries here is not abstract paranoia but an already-shown ability to reach deep into the device.
First-order effects
- Every iPhone owner's device identifier and app usage now flows to Apple without any disclosed opt-in, making the company the silent custodian of telemetry its customers never agreed to share.
- Apple must either confirm the tracking or refute the Weather.app/Stocks.app finding publicly — silence leaves the claim standing as the de facto answer on a flagship product.
Second-order effects
- Security researchers and the jailbreak community gain a concrete artifact to dissect, shifting their attention from break-in exploits toward auditing what Apple's bundled apps transmit.
- Rival handset makers watching the reaction get cover to build similar usage-tracking into their own phones if the outcry stays muted — or a warning shot if it does not.
Third-order effects
- If undisclosed device-to-vendor telemetry proves acceptable to the market in 2007, it becomes table stakes for consumer hardware: every connected device ships with a hidden reporting channel, and the norm of disclosure lags the capability.
- That gap between what devices do and what users are told is exactly the terrain privacy regulation and watchdog journalism would have to grow into over the following decade.
The trend: Smartphones are quietly becoming always-on telemetry endpoints whose vendors collect identifiers and behavior faster than users or regulators can see it.