Without consent? You have to have location services turned on and they're off by default when you get your phone.
I believe the article mentioned that the data comes purely
from triangulating your position with what cell towers you
are connected to.
The consent related to location services seems to be
only related to the GPS data.
Let's explore the 4 scenarios:
Cell Off, GPS Off: Nothing to log.
Cell On, GPS Off: Phone knows what towers it can see, but can't set the location.
Cell Off, GPS On: Phone knows where it is, but can't see towers.
Cell On, GPS On: Phone can see towers, and knows location. Logs this data.