LONDON (AP) — smartphones serve as handy devices for daily activities, yet they can access almost every detail of your personal information, such as all the locations you have visited — provided you grant them permission.
Whenever you utilize a mapping application to locate a new eatery suggested by your buddy, or open up your phone’s web browser to verify the cost of an item spotted during some casual browsing, you might inadvertently permit your device to monitor your whereabouts and transmit this data to third parties.
Mobile devices utilize multiple types of signals for determining their position, such as cellular network connections through cell towers, interactions with Wi-Fi hotspots, Bluetooth technology, and satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS).
Occasionally, your phone must have access to your location to deliver essential functions, such as guiding an Uber driver to your pickup spot. However, many times there isn’t much reason to monitor where you go, information that might end up being misused by applications, advertising platforms, or cybercriminals.
"Whether you're using your device for fitness tracking or navigating through an area, each time your location is shared, it can disclose information regarding your daily habits and whereabouts — this data might pose risks if accessed by unauthorized individuals,” stated Darren Guccione, CEO of Keeper Security. "Individuals ought to activate their location services solely when required, like while driving or in urgent situations, or when updating close friends, then promptly deactivate them once done.”
Specialists caution that location information might be employed to monitor individuals' movements. abortion clinics . For instance, 'an unhappy former partner might exploit location-sharing features to track someone, or an abuser in your present relationship could compel you to share locations as a form of dominance,' explained David Ruiz, who serves as a senior privacy advocate at the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes.
Below are several suggestions to ensure minimal use of location tracking:
App permissions
Go to your phone's settings menu to review permission settings.
Users of iPhones can navigate to the Privacy & Security section, followed by selecting Location Services, to review the settings for separate applications. Cybersecurity professionals advise against allowing apps to continuously access your location when running in the background. Rather, configure these apps to prompt permission each time they want to utilize your location, restrict usage to whenever the application is active, or completely prevent them from accessing your location data.
As you explore the Location Services settings, you may see small arrows showing which applications have accessed your location. A purple arrow signifies recent use, whereas a gray one points to access within the last 24 hours.
It's a little different for Android phones because there are so many different versions by various device manufacturers. In general, go to settings , and then tap the Location icon, which lets you turn it on or off for all apps.
To tweak settings for individual apps, tap App location permissions , where you'll get choices similar to those in iOS.
iPhone privacy
Apple has other tools to cut down on third-party tracking that might include location information. On the iPhone's Privacy & Security setting, under the Tracking tab, there's a toggle to Allow Apps to Request to Track. With this switched off, any new app requests will be automatically denied and they will also be stopped from accessing your phone's ad identifier.
Advertising ID
Privacy experts recommend blocking your Google or Apple device’s in-house ad identifier, which enables third-party tracking on most devices for better ad targeting.
For iPhone users, navigate to the Privacy settings and scroll down until you find Apple Advertising; from there, turn off Personalized Ads. If you're using a more recent Android device, head over to thePrivacy section, locate theAdsoption, and choose to delete yourAdvertising IDthere.
Pinpoint or general
Regardless of whether you choose Android or iOS, these operating systems offer options to accurately determine your location through a mix of wireless connections and information gathered from internal sensors like the gyroscope, accelerometer, and barometer. This capability aids in estimating the device’s whereabouts when, say, an indoor setting obstructs satellite-based GPS reception.
A key benefit of using this feature is to precisely indicate to individuals you’re scheduled to meet, your exact whereabouts. According to Google, these location signals are designed to be random, ensuring they cannot be linked back to an individual user or their accounts. Nonetheless, you may prefer not to disclose this information universally across all applications. Therefore, you have the option to instruct your device to merely broadcast its approximate geographical position instead.
On Android devices, disable the feature Location Accuracy For all applications, set the preferences on iPhones. You can enable or disable these settings individually for each app.
Your Google account
In addition to managing app permissions on your device, it's advisable to review your Google account settings as well. Following an exposé by the Associated Press in 2018, which revealed that Google still collected location data despite users opting out through a setting known as "location history," the company has been compelled to become more open regarding its location tracking methods.
Go to myaccount.google.com and then to the Data & Privacy section, where you'll find the Location History controls. Under recent changes, the history will be deleted after three months, though you can change that default setting.
Browsers
Popular smartphone web browsers like Safari or Chrome could give away your location, so try using one that that doesn't store information about you, like DuckDuckGo, Firefox Focus or Ecosia.
Should a privacy-conscious browser require access to your location via your IP address, it will seek your permission beforehand. Additionally, it provides an easy way for you to remove your cookies and other online activity data.
Find my device
Smartphones or tablets can likewise be located using Apple's Find My or Google's Find My Device services when they get misplaced. If you suspect unauthorized access to your Apple or Google account, you have the option to disable these tracking features.
Block the signal
Certain cybersecurity sites suggest enabling airplane mode; however, since it does not necessarily disable every signal, relying solely on this method isn't advisable.
A signal-blocking Faraday pouch would be a more suitable option, however, ensure you verify its effectiveness to confirm it blocks all signals completely. Also, remember that you will have to remove the device from the pouch whenever you want to utilize it.
Tradeoffs
With numerous potential methods through which smartphones—and other gadgets such as smartwatches—can monitor our whereabouts, compiling a comprehensive list becomes quite challenging.
The standard interaction we have with applications, businesses, and platforms involves allowing them to monitor us, making it significantly more challenging for us to examine all the pathways through which our information is disseminated, according to Ruiz.
"The sad reality is that to completely stop this, we must delve into our device settings and review every single application one by one, making personal choices about how these applications gather our location information," explained Ruiz. "Otherwise, we’d have to disable all location services altogether," which might lead to issues such as needing to input addresses manually when using ridesharing apps or lacking real-time guidance from map programs, he noted.
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