AccuWeather says it did not know about access to collected location data

AccuWeather has responded to the report from security researcher Will Strafach. He stated that the app continues to collect location data even though the user has specifically disabled it. According to AccuWeather, it had no knowledge of this and nothing was done with the data.

AccuWeather says non-user data, such as the Wi-Fi network information, was available for a short time from Reveal Mobile, the company that Strafach says collected the data. The company behind the weather app says it did nothing with this data and didn’t even know it had access to this information. The statement, which was co-authored with Reveal Mobile, does not say whether or not the latter company did anything with the information. Reveal Mobile does say that no user location was reverse engineered based on the information collected, nor was it intended to.

The statement states that Reveal Mobile will update its software development kit and that AccuWeather will temporarily remove Reveal Mobile’s development kit from its app in the meantime, until it is back in line with the relevant requirements and rules. It is not clear from the statement what exactly will be adjusted and on what basis. Once all of this has been implemented, AccuWeather says that once a user chooses to turn off location data sharing, no data will be forwarded at all to Reveal Mobile.

Security researcher Will Strafach reported yesterday that the AccuWeather iOS app collects data through the company Reveal Mobile that can map the user’s location, even though the user’s location data collection is disabled. According to the researcher, data is still being collected, such as the name of the router or the bssid. This will allow you to determine the location.