It’s Time to Check Which Apps Are Tracking Your Location
Guess what? Lots of applications, like knowing where you are so developers can take that data, package it up for different advertising companies, and quickly make money from your exact location, including where you go and how long you spend there.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that many apps directly ask you to share this information as part of an exchange or what I like to call a “tacit agreement in which you provide free apps with information about yourself in exchange for not having to pay. … for their usefulness. ” But, in fact, getting information about your location can happen in any application: free, paid, subscription, etc.
The New York Times recently took a close look at this common practice, and the results are as telling as they are disappointing:
“To evaluate location sharing practices, The Times tested 20 applications, most of which were identified by researchers and industry insiders as potentially data sharing. Together, 17 apps sent the exact latitude and longitude to about 70 companies. 40 companies have received accurate location data from a single WeatherBug iOS app. When contacting The Times, some of the companies receiving this data called it “undesirable” or “inappropriate.”
Ugh.
How to block your location
There are several tricks you can use to prevent apps from tracking where you are. First of all, don’t agree to share your location with them. How simple it is. Apps don’t always tell you how your data will be used in addition to what they claim – for example, a weather app might say it needs to know where you are all the time to alert you if it rains (fair) but does not mention that he intends to send this information to another company. Or worse, it hides this slight omission in some sort of privacy policy that you both know you’re never going to read.
On iOS, don’t let apps know where you are any more than they need to. You can get by by not letting your restaurant app see where you are 24/7 – under the guise of helping you find a restaurant near you. If you rarely check the weather, do not tell the application where you are at the moment; instead, when prompted, tell the app that it is only allowed to see your location when you are using it .
Unfortunately, you don’t get that much granularity with Android apps . When an app wants to know your location, it is all or nothing:
However, you can see if Android apps want to know exactly where you are, or sort of like where you are. On Android, tap Settings in the app and then tap Apps & notifications. Select an app, click Permissions, click the three dots icon in the upper right corner, click All Permissions, and scroll down to the Location section.
Turning location services on or off for apps you’ve already installed
As The New York Times notes in the next article , managing permissions and location settings on both iOS and Android isn’t all that difficult.
For iOS, just open the Settings app and go to the Privacy section. Tap Location Services and you’ll see customized location preferences (such as “When in use” or “Always”) for each app that has requested this permission. Click on an app to configure its access, or click on the larger Location Services setting to disable access for everything, including your system apps. This is the best way to guarantee privacy on your device, although it may cost you some usability.
To change location permissions for individual apps on Android , tap Settings and then tap Apps & notifications. Select an app, tap permissions, and turn Location on or off. You can also access a more convenient list of all apps, which shows if they are using location services or not, by scrolling down to the bottom of the Apps & Notifications screen, tapping More, tapping App Permissions, and tapping ” Location “.
If you want to completely disable location tracking on your Android device, return to the main Settings app screen. Click on Security & Location, scroll down to the Privacy section and click on Location. Uncheck the Use Location checkbox if you want to disable it entirely, although this can cause problems with some applications and system services.
(These steps may differ depending on which Android device / OS you’re using, so also visit the Google support site if you’re having trouble finding anything. We’re using Android 9 Pie on the Pixel 3 XL.)
What about the location data that I have already discarded?
Some services make it easier to view and delete location history that you have already given them. For example, on Facebook, you just need to go to Settings , click on View Location History, click on the three-dot icon in the top right corner, and select Delete All Location History.
On Google: Open the action controls to turn off App & Web Search and Location History, then go to the timeline to delete your location history – look for the trash can icon in the bottom right corner.
Other services and applications, such as Snapchat, for example, allow you to view the location data collected by the developer , but not delete it. You will want to disable any settings or features that provide this information (such as your Snap Map), and consider preventing the app from using location history through your device’s operating system, as we mentioned earlier.