After the release of the new documentary 2000 Mules, location tracking is once again on the minds of Americans, albeit not necessarily for the right reasons. In the film, its creator Dinesh D’Souza attempts to shed light on the ballot harvesting process during the 2020 elections using location data purchased from data brokers.
However, according to New Publication On a Substack from Rob Graham, creator of BlackICE’s Personal Firewall, the data isn’t nearly as accurate as the movie claims. In the post, Graham says that while data from your smartphone can be used to find your location 30 feet away, it’s not accurate enough to locate someone within six feet of their actual location — for example, in front of a ballot box.
But while D’Souza’s claims haven’t been scrutinized, location tracking is a very real concern for your security and privacy — as both Vice stories recently revealed. Here’s what you need to know about location tracking and how to avoid being tracked.
Network-Based Tracking vs. Wi-Fi-Based Tracking
There are many ways your smartphone can be used to track your location including through the apps you install and use, but most of the time, this is done using cell towers or wireless networks.
No matter what mobile company that you use, your smartphone can be located using their network infrastructure. The reason for using network-based tracking is often due to the fact that it is non-intrusive and no additional apps or services need to be installed on your device.
By seeing the cell towers closest to you, someone trying to track them could be using them triangulation to determine your location. The moment you turn on your smartphone, it automatically connects to your service provider’s network regardless of whether you interact with it or not. Even if you’re not making calls or sending messages, your device will periodically “check in” using cell towers as you go about your day. At the same time, GPS can also be used to help determine your location but is more accurate in less crowded areas.
The most accurate way to track a user’s location in urban areas is to use Wi-Fi. Your iPhone or Android smartphone frequently searches for the location of Wi-Fi access points which can in turn be used to triangulate the location of your device. This is why some security experts recommend turning off Wi-Fi when you’re outside, although you can also use a file VPN To help hide your truth IP.
Location data is readily available for purchase
Just like with all data connected over the internet, Smartphone location data Easily available for purchase for legitimate reasons such as analytics as well as on dark web For more nefarious purposes.
According to Graham, there are many companies that create libraries for creating smartphone apps where you enter code that records user location data from the apps they were built with. While some developers use these libraries to advertise or to track this information themselves, sometimes they are not aware that location data is being collected for their users.
Once the location data is collected, it is then sold to third parties that do some work of anonymity and then resold themselves. data brokers You can also purchase location information directly from the carriers but these data sets are collected using data from their cell towers rather than the apps installed on your smartphone.
for example, New York times He wrote an article in 2019 on a data set containing more than 50 billion location connections from more than 12 million phones purchased from the location data company. By analyzing this data, The Times Privacy Project was able to track users’ movements over several months in 2016 and 2017 to see where they went and how long they stayed at each location.
How to disable location tracking on Android phones
The easiest way to Disable location tracking on Android By disabling the location in the quick settings panel at the top of your notifications. The site can be turned on or off but you may need to click the pencil icon at the bottom of the quick settings panel to add it if it is not already there.
Similarly, you can open your phone’s Settings menu and scroll down where you will find Location Settings under Security & Privacy. Here you can disable location completely and also see which apps have made location requests recently. Under Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Scan, you can disable both to make it more difficult to use these scans to track your device. You can also manage permissions to access your carrier’s location but be warned, your carrier can still access this information when you call 911 or text your phone number.
How to disable location tracking on iPhone
Unlike Android, iOS Control Center It does not give you an option to turn off location services but if you have a short time, you can always ask Siri to Disable iPhone location tracking is yours.
For those who prefer doing things themselves, you’ll want to open the Settings app on your iPhone, scroll down and tap Privacy. Under the Privacy tab, you will find Location Services which can be turned on or off. From here, scroll to the bottom of this list and click on System Services where you will find all the Apple services that use your phone’s location including important ones. Clicking “Shutdown” at the bottom will deactivate the important sites but you can also clear the history of important sites by clicking on “Clear history” from the list of important sites.
Disable location services in individual apps
Although completely disabling Location Services on iOS or Android will prevent all apps on your smartphone from collecting location data, you also won’t be able to use it. Google Maps or Apple Mapswhich can be very uncomfortable.
For this reason, disabling location services for each app individually may be the best solution for most people. While this will not prevent you from being tracked from cell towers and Wi-Fi networks, it will prevent data brokers from getting some of your location data.
If you are Is that true If you want to avoid location tracking altogether, the only way to do that is to leave your smartphone at home which is a very high demand in today’s increasingly connected world. As usual, convenience has a price.
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