Steve Jobs will testify in Al Franken's hearings on iPhone tracking

Jobs says his iPhones aren't tracking anyone.

It sounds like Apple CEO Steve Jobs has agreed to testify before Sen. Al Franken's subcommittee on privacy and technology, following an uproar over stories that iPhones and iPads were tracking the location of their users and storing the data, apparently without permission.

Franken waded into the controversy by firing off a public letter to Jobs, demanding an explanation, and inviting him to testify at the hearings, scheduled for May.

Later, Franken included Google in the invite when he learned that the company's Android operating system also used tracking software.

Via All Things Digital:

Researchers created mapping software that draws on the tracking software in iPhones and iPads.

Q: Do you guys plan on testifying before Congress? How active do you personally and does Apple want to be?

Jobs: I think Apple will be testifying. They have asked us to come and we will honor their request, of course. I think it is great that they are investigating this and I think it will be interesting to see how agressive or lazy the press is on this in terms of investigating the rest of the participants in the industry and finding out what they do.

"We haven't been tracking anyone," Jobs said in the interview. "We haven't-as an industry-done a very good job educating people, I think, as to some of the more subtle things going on here. As such, (people) jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions in the last week."

Including Franken? We'll find out in May.

Previous coverage:

• Al Franken grills Steve Jobs over iPad, iPhone tracking
• Will Al Franken take on Android too?
• Franken wants Apple and Google to testify about smartphone tracking