Your Android phone, but also your car and many other connected devices track you. Once a luxury, now a connected default, we live in a world where companies and governments can know where we are at all times and where we’ve been, as long as we allow the collection and access to that data.
Tracking without your knowledge
Telecommunications companies and smartphone manufacturers continue to claim that there is no privacy risk, but is this really true?
As a security measure, most geolocation data is anonymized before it is saved or sold, but data and privacy researchers have proven that this may not be enough: geolocation data may seem harmless, but all it takes is one algorithm to combine recognition patterns and associate them with personally identifiable information and the owner of the data can be found.
Turn off geolocation on Android
Android geolocation setup
The steps are similar for all Android devices.
To turn off geotagging on Android devices do the following:
Go to your Settings Select “Location” Flip the switch to the “Off” position If you just want to save battery, just change the Location Mode to “Battery Saving” Go to Google Location reporting Disable Location Reporting and Location History
Other point to mention
Be aware that tracking can also be easily performed through your mobile network or wi-fi connection.