According to published reports released today, Apple is stepping up to the plate to protect the privacy of its iPhone and iPad users, at least somewhat. The company reportedly will provide a software update that stores less location information on phones, in response to large public concerns about privacy. The company also claimed that it has never, and has no plans to track user locations.

Nonetheless, Apple does admit that its iPhones and iPads do store information about WiFi hot spots and cell towers around each user’s current locations. The information, it said, is stored on the device and backed up in iTunes, which could conceivably be hacked into.

So, now for the news… Apple is coming out with a software update that would cut the size of the hot spot/cell tower database, stop backing up the information, and limit the data storage to seven days instead of the current year. The update is due out in a few weeks.

The news from Apple comes just one day after Sony was hit with several lawsuits over a massive security breach in its Playstation network that might have exposed the credit card data of millions of subscribers to hackers. The Federal Trade Commission, and several political leaders, have all taken up the issue of customer and subscriber data security. I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this from anybody, and we’ll try to keep you informed as best we can, without making note of where you access the information.