MUMBAI: Apple is being sued by a man who says that iPhones and iPads are being used to send personal information to advertisers without users‘ consent.

Jonathan Lalo of Los Angeles County filed the lawsuit on Thursday in US District Court in San Jose, California, alleging that Apple‘s iPhones and iPads let ad networks track which applications people download, how often those programmes are used, and for how long, according to a Bloomberg article published today.
 
"Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users‘ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views," Lalo said in the suit, Bloomberg reported.

According to the report, the suit has alleged that ad networks are able to trace an iPhone or iPad using the unique device identifier, or UDID, which is a number specific to each unit that can‘t be blocked by users. 
 
Lalo claims that this is in violation of the federal computer fraud and privacy laws, which prohibits sending personal data without consent.
Apart from Apple, the suit names as defendants several makers of apps, including popular programs such as Pandora, Dictionary.com and The Weather Channel.