![]() This provides highly accurate location information to within just a few feet because of Bluetooth’s short broadcast range. This way, a Bluetooth receiver can then capture that phone’s unique MAC address. ![]() If Bluetooth is enabled on a phone, it will periodically seek out Bluetooth-enabled devices to connect to while the phone is awake. ![]() Bluetooth: Like with public Wi-Fi, companies can use strategically placed Bluetooth devices to gather location information as well.Taken together, this can allow the Wi-Fi hosting company to gather location and behavioral data while you use your phone on their Wi-Fi network. It’s a nice convenience but connecting to their Wi-Fi may share a phone’s MAC address, a unique identifier for connected devices, along with other identifiers on the smartphone. Public Wi-Fi: Larger tech companies and internet providers will sometimes provide free public Wi-Fi hotspots that people can tap into at airports, restaurants, coffeehouses, and such.One of the most significant public benefits of this method is that it automatically routes emergency services calls (like 911 in the U.S.) to the proper local authorities without any guesswork from the caller. It’s most accurate in urban areas with high densities of cell phone towers, although it does not always work well indoors as some buildings can weaken or block cell phone signals. The location information this method provides is a bit coarser than GPS, providing results that can place a phone within 150 feet. Cell towers: Cell phone providers can track a phone’s location by the distance it is to various cell phone towers and by the strength of its signal.This is what powers location services on cell phones, and thus can help an app recommend a great burger joint nearby. It’s highly accurate, to anywhere between nine to 30 feet depending on conditions and technology used, making it one of the strongest tools for determining a phone’s location. First designed for national defense, the system became available for public use in the 1980s. GPS: The Global Positioning System, or GPS as many of us know it, is a system of satellites operated by the U.S.How do Smartphones Track Your Movements?Īs we look at the ways you can limit location tracking on your phone, it helps to know the basics of how smartphones can track your movements.įor starters, outside of shutting down your phone completely, your phone can be used to determine your location to varying degrees of accuracy depending on the method used: If that sounds like more than you’re willing to share, know that you can do several things that can limit location tracking on your phone-and thus limit the information that can potentially end up in other people’s hands. Likewise, cell phone providers have other means of collecting location information from your phone, which they may use for advertising and other purposes as well. They may collect it, and in turn sell it to advertisers and potentially other third parties that have an interest in where you go and what you do. Yet the apps that use location tracking may do more with your location data than that. Location tracking on your phone offers plenty of benefits, such as with apps that can recommend a good restaurant nearby, serve up the weather report for your exact location, or connect you with singles for dating in your area. And they most certainly know a lot about where we go, thanks to the several ways they can track our location. We all know that our phones know a lot about us.
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