14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Apple’s omission to encrypt the information stored in iOS as user location data is affecting iPhone carriers overseas, with Israeli operator Partner Communications Company Ltd. now announcing that it has been hit by a lawsuit because customers had not been informed of the flaw.
Even though Apple quickly addressed the problem with the release of iOS 4.3.3 soon after its discovery, Partner is now facing legal action for Apple’s mistake, the operator announced today.
The suit, filed May 3, 2011 in the Central District Court, is accompanied by a motion for its recognition as a “class action.”
The suit alleges that “Partner should have informed its customers of the fact that Apple's ‘iPhone’ cellular handsets with the IOS-4 operating system, which were sold since June 2010 (‘the handsets’), store the user's location (‘the data’) and when connecting to a computer, transfer the data to the computer, as an unprotected file,” says the operator.
Partner Communications is a provider of telecommunications services under the orange brand. It is an approximately 45%-owned subsidiary of Scailex Corporation Ltd.
In addition to remedying the situation with (what else?) monetary compensation, “the plaintiff requests the court to instruct Partner to update the handset software in a manner that will prevent the data storage, and alternatively, if this is not possible, to allow customers to cancel their handset purchase transactions.”
The part about updating the iPhones shouldn’t hold water as iOS 4.3.3 has long been released with documentation that clearly states its purpose - in that it patches up the flaw in question.
The claims to cancel iPhone and / or contract purchases are a different thing altogether which may, or may not be substantiated as well.
Still, Partner notes, “If the lawsuit is recognized as a class action, the total amount claimed is estimated by the plaintiff to be approximately NIS 100 million,” which translates into 28,673,588 US Dollars, according to the Israel Currency Calculator.
The operator is now looking into ways to evade paying damages, including evaluating “the probability of success of the lawsuit.”