Invade your privacy? Apple has an app for that.

Apple, once the golden boy of the tech world, is coming under increasing fire for a wide variety of what some people believe are questionable practices. The most recent one concerns privacy: If you use an iPhone or an iPad, Apple collects and shares data about your precise geographic location. Congress, among others, is not amused and may investigate.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Apple collects "precise" "real-time geographic location" information about users of iPhones, iPads, as well as its computers. The paper notes that Apple has added a new paragraph about location-based services to its privacy policy.

Here's the addition:

Location-Based Services

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.

Some location-based services offered by Apple, such as the MobileMe "Find My iPhone" feature, require your personal information for the feature to work.

Here's the kicker, according to the newspaper: When you try to download media or apps from the iTunes store, you're asked to agree to the new policy. If you don't agree, you can't download.

The policy says that the information is anonymous, and does not in any way personally identify users. However, that's not quite true. When large amounts of data are gathered, there's a way to reconstruct information about individuals through patterns of use, as noted in this paper from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. The New York Times notes that the researchers used large amounts of anonymous data from a Netflix contest that analyzed the movie rental history of 500,000 subscribers, and were able to personally identify individuals "by statistically analyzing an individual's distinctive pattern of movie ratings and recommendations."

So the "anonymous" data that Apple gathers about you and shares about you may not remain anonymous forever.

Two Congressmen from different sides of the aisle want more information from Apple about the new privacy policy. Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) are as ideologically apart as possible, but both are concerned about potential privacy violations by Apple in its new privacy policy.

They co-wrote a letter to Steve Jobs (download it here), saying they were concerned about the gathering of precise geographic data, and asking that Apple provide more information. The letter says:

"Given the limited ability of Apple users to opt out of the revised policy and still be able to take advantage of the features of their Apple products, we are concerned about the impact the collection of such data could have on the privacy of Apple's customers.

The letter then asks a series of nine questions, such as which products gather the data, when did the data start being gathered, how Apple intends to use the data, and which Apple partners and licensees gets to share the data. The letter ends with this zinger:

Does Apple believe that legal boilerplate in a general information policy, which the consumer must agree to in order to download applications or updates, is fully consistent with the intent of Section 222, and sufficient to inform the consumer that the consumer's location may be disclosed to other parties? Has Apple or its legal counsel conducted an analysis of this issue? If yes, please provide a copy. If not, why not?

Section 222, by the way, is the portion of the US Code that governs privacy of customer information.

The Congressmen ask that Jobs respond by July 12. No matter how Jobs responds, it won't end there. This is an issue that won't go away.