PSA: Your Phone Is Registered Wherever You Go. Here’s How to Turn It Off

You probably know that your Android phone or iPhone can determine your location using GPS, local search, or weather. Hopefully you also know what this means your phone is constantly tracking wherever you go. Don’t be alarmed – this is the trade-off you make in favor of the functions you get. If you’re not comfortable with this, here’s how to opt out of location tracking on Android and iOS.

Manage location services on Android

If you’re an Android user, Google’s location services are broken down into three main features : location accuracy, location history, and location sharing.

• Location Accuracy is a feature that gives apps like Google Now, Google Maps, Foursquare, Twitter, and even your camera app access to your location. When the app shows you something nearby, suggests local businesses, or helps you find the nearest gas station, it uses location accuracy. If you leave it on, your phone will triangulate your exact location using GPS, Wi-Fi, mobile networks, and other device sensors. Turn it off and your device will only use GPS to determine your location.
• Location history is a feature that keeps track of where you’ve been and any addresses you enter or go to.
• Location sharing is self- explanatory, but here’s a quick reminder: This feature allows others to see where you are in real time. You must specifically set this up in Google Maps so that your friends can see your location; they can’t just ping your default device (obviously).

To turn off location accuracy in Android:

1. Pull settings
2. Click on Location
3. Disable the Use Location button.
4. Also tap Google Location Accuracy and set this feature to Off.

From the Location screen, you can set specific location permissions for apps, such as whether you want the app to always have access to your device’s location or only when you are using a specified app. You can also turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning if you want to make it more difficult for apps and services to determine your exact location.

On this screen, you can also turn off Google’s location history if you don’t want it to keep a record of where you’ve been, as well as sharing the location of your Android device.

(Note: We tested this on Google Pixel 3; exact navigation / names may vary slightly on your specific Android device.)

To delete existing Location History in Android:

• Visit Google Activity Controls (where you can also turn off location history tracking for your entire account)
• Click “Manage Activity”.
• Click the tiny trash can icon in the lower right corner of the screen. It looks like this:

• Confirm that you want to delete all location history, then click the big red “Delete location history” link.

You can also set Google to automatically delete old location history on your behalf, which is useful if you want to use this feature to track your recent location but don’t want to keep a permanent record. On the Google Maps timeline, click the gear icon to open the settings.

Select “Automatically delete location history” and then select the desired timeline:

If you are using a phone and not a computer, you can delete your location history by opening Google Maps, clicking the hamburger icon, selecting “Your Timeline,” clicking the three dots icon in the upper right corner, clicking “Settings” and scroll down until you will not see the option “Delete all location history”. This is also where you can set up automatic deletion if you’re curious and where you turn off location services for your device or location history for your account.

To stop sharing your location with certain people

1. Pull up Google, Sharing location information settings
2. Remove people to prevent them from seeing your location in real time.

If you are using your phone and not your computer, open Google Maps, tap the hamburger icon, and tap Transfer Location. You will be able to add and remove your friends as you see fit.

IOS Location Services Management:

Choosing which apps may or may not access the location of your iPhone or iPad is easy.

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Scroll down and tap Privacy.
3. Click on Location Services

Here you can turn off location services for the entire device. When you do, you will see a prompt explaining this feature in a little more detail:

On Apple’s website, the company notes that location services “use GPS and Bluetooth (where available), as well as crowdsourced Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers, to determine the approximate location of your device.” Turn off location services and “apps won’t be able to use your location in the foreground or background.”

From the Location Services screen, you can also set up access for your device’s apps — either allow them to use your location whenever they want, only when you’re using the app, or never. You can also ask you to display a prompt the next time the app wants to figure out where you are, and then you can decide.

To stop sharing your location with other people

If you click on the Share My Location option in Location Services, you can check if Find My iPhone (which is good) or Share My Location is enabled. The latter is what you’ll be able to send to people in messages as well as in the Apple Find My app, and it’s a necessary component for location-based automation through the Home app.

To remove “important places” from your iPhone or iPad

Finally, go back to the main location services screen and scroll down to system services at the very bottom of the list of apps. Pull it up and you’ll see a large list of features that can access your location (if you allow them). To remove places you regularly visit (just enough for your device to consider them important) , tap on the “Important Locations” option, tap on a location and tap “Edit” to start removing it. You can also clear the entire history of Points of Interest using the option at the bottom of the screen.

Be that as it may, all of these locations are encrypted and stored locally on your device – Apple can’t see them. Likewise, Apple does not collect your location data, associate it with your account, or store it somewhere on a server. You can verify this yourself by requesting a copy of any data Apple has collected about you, or you can also read Apple’s various location and privacy statements .

This story was originally published on 12/19/13, with more recent information added on 8/19/19.

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