S. Korean iPhone users sue Apple over privacy

Nearly 27,000 iPhone users on Wednesday filed a class-action suit against Apple Inc., demanding compensation for privacy violations inflicted by the smartphone's user location tracking, Yonhap News Agency reported. "Collection of users' locations without their consent constitutes an apparent legal violation and we will carry out class-action suit against Apple, a corporate behemoth, in order to salvage consumers' rights," said Miraelaw, a South Korean law firm handling the case. Miraelaw lodged the lawsuit on behalf of 26,691 iPhone users at a court based in the city of Changwon, 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the report said. The class-action suit seeks to win each complainant KRW 1 million (USD 935) in compensation from the US-based tech company and its local unit Apple Korea Inc. for the handset's user location tracking functions that the company said breached users' rights to privacy and incurred consequent psychological distress. The company plans to form another group of iPhone owners by end-August to join its next round of litigation against the maker of the iconic smartphone, the report said. South Korea is a home to about 3 million iPhone users. The class-action suit came after an attorney at the law firm received KRW 1 million in July in Apple's first-ever compensation payment in South Korea over the iPhone's secret functions that track and store data on users' locations.