MoviePass updates iOS app to remove ‘unused’ location-tracking features

MoviePass has updated its iOS app today, with the changelog noting that the company has removed “unused app location capability,” as spotted by Engadget.

The update comes after CEO Mitch Lowe made comments at the Entertainment Finance Forum in Los Angeles last week, claiming that the company was tracking users’ locations. “We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards,” commented Lowe, according to a report from Media Play News.

MoviePass issued a statement a few days later, commenting that the company is “exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities for our subscribers to enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night. We will not be selling the data that we gather.”

It doesn’t seem like MoviePass is actually tracking data on users right now. The service’s privacy policy only mentions that the GPS location is accessed to make sure that users are actually nearby the theater that they’re purchasing a ticket from. But it seems that the company is taking an extra step to ensure that there’s nothing shady going on with user tracking.

In a statement released to Engadget regarding the update, MoviePass reiterated that it still plans to use “location-based marketing to enhance the movie-going experience for our members,” it currently isn’t using that functionality, and MoviePass customers will “always have the option to choose the location-based services that are right for them today and in the future.”