Turn off geolocation on iPhone, to protect your privacy

Your iPhone, 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 iPhone

iPhone geolocation setup

The steps are similar for all iPhone devices.

To turn off geotagging on iPhone devices do the following:

First, open Settings by tapping the gray gear icon on your home screen.
In Settings, select “Privacy.”
In “Privacy,” tap “Location Services.”
In “Location Services,” tap the switch beside “Location Services” to turn it off.

As soon as you flip the switch, you’ll see a pop-up warning. It reminds you that Location Services can be turned on remotely if your iPhone is placed into Lost Mode using the Find My iPhone service. Tap “Turn Off.”

Other point to mention

Be aware that tracking can also be easily performed through your mobile network or wi-fi connection.