Can My Phone Be Tracked If Location Services Is Off – The National Security Agency recommends that some government employees and people who are generally concerned about privacy turn off Find-My-Phone, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when these services are not needed, as well as by apps. Restrict the use of location data.
“Location data can be very valuable and should be protected,” said the advisory released Tuesday. “It can reveal details about the number of users in a location, user and supply movements, daily routines (user and organizational), and can reveal unknown associations between users and locations.”
Can My Phone Be Tracked If Location Services Is Off
NSA officials have acknowledged that geolocation functions are enabled by design and necessary for mobile communications. Officials also acknowledge that the proposed safeguards are impractical for most users. Mapping, tracking the location of lost or stolen phones, automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks, and fitness trackers and apps are just a few things that good places need to work.
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But these features come at a cost. Adversaries can access location data that app developers, ad services, and other third parties receive from apps and then store in large databases. Opponents can also subscribe to services such as those offered by Secours and LocationSmart, two services that The New York Times and Krabs On Security have documented, respectively. Both companies track or sell customer locations aggregated by the cell towers of major cellular carriers.
Not only did LocationSmart leak this data to anyone who knew a simple trick to exploit a common class of website bugs, but a deputy reporter was able to pay another service $300 for real-time phone calls. Get the position. The New York Times also published an interesting feature detailing services that use mobile location data to track the history of millions of people over a long period of time.
The advisory also warns that tracking often occurs even when cellular service is off, as both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can track locations and beam them to third parties connected to the Internet or with sensors in radio range. .
Disable the location services settings on the device. Disable radios when they are not actively used: Disable BT and turn off Wi-Fi if these capabilities are not needed. Use airplane mode when the device is not in use. Make sure BT and Wi-Fi are disabled when airplane mode is on. Apps should be given as few permissions as possible: Adjust privacy settings to ensure apps don’t use or share location data. Avoid using location-based apps if possible, as these apps inherently expose user location data. If used, the location privacy/permission settings for such apps should be set to either not allow the use of location data or at most only allow the use of location data while using the app. Examples of location-based apps are maps, compasses, traffic apps, fitness apps, apps for finding local restaurants, and shopping apps. Disable ad permissions as much as possible: Adjust privacy settings to limit ad tracking, note that these restrictions are at the seller’s discretion. Configure the advertising ID for the device regularly. At least, it should be weekly. Turn off settings (commonly known as FindMy or Find My Device Settings) that allow tracking of a lost, stolen or misplaced device. Minimize web browsing on the device as much as possible, and adjust browser privacy/permission location settings to disallow the use of location data. Use an anonymous Virtual Private Network (VPN) to help you stay hidden. Reduce the amount of data with location data stored in the cloud, if possible. If it is important that the location not be revealed for a particular mission, consider the following recommendations: Designate an insensitive location where wireless-capable equipment can be secured before any activities begin. Make sure the mission site cannot be predicted from here. Leave all devices with any wireless capabilities (including personal devices) in this insensitive location. Blocking the device may not be enough if the device is bricked. For mission transportation, use vehicles without wireless communication capabilities, or disable capabilities if possible. Cell phone use means tracking
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Patrick Wardle, a MacOS and iOS security expert and former hacker for the NSA, said the recommendations are a “great start” but that people following the recommendations should not see them as anything close to absolute protection.
“As long as your phone is connected to cellular towers, which it should be to use the cellular network … AFAIK that reveals your location,” said Wardle, who is a security researcher at MacOS and iOS Enterprise Management. Jamf, told me. “It’s, as always, a trade-off between performance/usability and security, but basically if you’re using a phone, assume you can be tracked.”
He said that the latest versions of iOS make it easier to follow most of the recommendations. The first time users open an app, they get a prompt asking if they want the app to receive location data. If the user says yes, access can only happen when the app is open. This prevents apps from collecting data in the background for long periods of time. iOS also does a good job of randomizing MAC addresses which, when static, provide a unique identifier for each device.
Other recent versions of Android also allow similar location permissions and when running on specific hardware (which usually comes at a premium cost) also randomize MAC addresses.
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Both OSes require users to manually turn off ad personalization and reset ad IDs. On iOS, people can do this in Settings > Privacy > Ads. To track limited ads the slider must be enabled. Just below the slider is the Ad Identifier. Press it and select Reset ID. While in the privacy section, users should review which apps have access to location data. Make sure as few apps as possible have access.
In Android 10, users can limit ad tracking and reset ad IDs by going to Settings > Privacy and clicking Ads. Both setting an Ad ID and opting out of ad personalization are available. To review which apps have access to location data, go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Advanced > Permission manager > Location. Android allows apps to collect data continuously or only during use. Allow only apps that really need to access location data, and then try to limit that access to only when in use.
Tuesday’s advisory also recommends that people limit the sharing of location information on social media and that remote metadata show sensitive locations before posting photos. The NSA also warns about location data exposed by car navigation systems, wearable devices such as fitness devices, and objects from the Internet.
This advisory is primarily intended for military personnel and contractors whose location data may compromise operations or pose personal risk. But the information can be useful for others, as long as they consider their threat model and weigh the acceptable risks against the benefits of different settings.
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Dan Godin Dan is the director of security at Ars Technica, which he joined in 2012 after working for The Register, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and other publications. Find him at Mastodon: https://infosec.exchange/@dangoodineditors Select and review products independently. If you make a purchase through affiliate links, we may receive commissions, which help support our testing.
When you first boot up an iOS device, it asks if you want to enable location services, which are useful for pinpointing your location on apps like Google Maps or social media.
Most snakes turn on and never look back. Who has time to drill and adjust place settings? you do. It may seem daunting, but with a few simple taps, you can control your location data to only give Apple and its app developers the information they really need to run their apps and services.
To turn off location services completely, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and turn off Location Services at the top of the screen. Be careful about doing this, though, because many of the services you use every day are inactive.
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For example, photos won’t attach a location when you take them, maps apps won’t be able to guide you anywhere, and Uber or Lyft won’t pinpoint your location. Disabling location services may help you preserve your device’s battery life and maintain a higher level of smart device privacy, but it will reduce your overall experience.
Instead of the atomic option, adjust location permissions for individual apps under Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Choose an app from the list and let it match your comfort level. As of iOS 14, there are four options for location services for apps:
If you’re fine with apps using location data but feel uneasy about them telling you exactly where you are, turn off Precise Location and the app will only know your approximate location, which should be enough for most apps and services.
You can also disable background location tracking features in iOS system services. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services, scroll down
