Apple is fixing iPhone 11’s location privacy issue with second iOS 13.3.1 beta

We had earlier reported that Apple was collecting location data from the iPhone 11 "even when it was not supposed to". Security researcher Brain Krebs explained in his blog that - "One of the more curious behaviours of Apple's new iPhone 11 Pro is that it intermittently seeks the user's location information even when all applications and system services on the phone are individually set to never request this data."

Dismissing reports that iPhone 11 Pro continuously collects and transmits its users location data even when the user has blocked it from doing so, Apple said that the confusion arose because of its ultra wide-band technology.

However, to put things to rest, Apple has decided to 'fix' the issue nonetheless with the second beta version of Apple's iOS 13.3.1. Released earlier this month this update includes a toggle for disabling the Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip in the device.

Apple had stated that the unsolicited location collecting behaviour was due to the fact the "UWB chip in the new iPhones isn't approved broadly around the world, so the iPhone 11 uses location services to check if UWB can be used or not".

"We do not see any actual security implications," an Apple engineer had told Krebs adding that - "It is expected behaviour that the Location Services icon appears in the status bar when Location Services is enabled. The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings."

With the latest update, iPhone 11 users will be able to turn off location sharing once and for all if desired and completely.