Phone is Tracking Us, Sharing Where We Are & When! How to Fix it

Lara

Lara

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Mid-Atlantic Coast
Whether you have an iPhone or Android phone, anyone can stalk you unless you turn off "Frequent Locations" under your Settings. Your information is all in your phone for others with a phone to get into it. And if you have an Android then it is also stored in your computer. It is shared with anyone who wants it.

Investigators use this to find last "pinned location and time" of kidnapped victims which is quite handy for locating the victim if you've been kidnapped but the chances of being kidnapped at our age is unlikely. The only inconvenience I can think of, when you turn off "tracking" might be when you are using your GPS, you may have to type in your beginning location...a small price to pay for the sake of privacy in my opinion. But this video below says nothing changes within the rest of your phone when you turn off "Frequent Locations" tracking.

NBC Today Show:

 

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My student just bought a new Android phone and freaked out when it showed a weather forecast for the area that he was in - 2 hours from home.

I told him, "Now I know where you are - ALL the time!" :pepper:
 
All of my family have and use I Phones and with mutual consent we know where each of us can be presently located as shown on the GPS.
 

This hidden tracking without anyone's knowledge has been going on for a long time apparently. I new someone a decade ago who tracked her boyfriend's whereabouts because she didn't trust him. He'd say he was going to his Mother's house and she'd find him on the phone at a bar. I never asked he how she did it. I think I was too shocked to believe it or something. But this video made me realize how true it is. For those who can't get the video but want to turn off this hidden tracking in their phone, here's how:

1. Go to SETTINGS
2. Go to PRIVACY
3. Go to LOCATION SERVICES
4. Go to SYSTEM SERVICES
5. Go to LOCATIONS
6. Shut FREQUENT LOCATIONS off
 
I just have a cheap consumer cellular phone and don't have the privacy under my settings. You can buy the more expensive phones from them but mine suits me so I just opted for a cheapie.
 
Mine has always been off, but I know Google maps and others use mobile tracking to estimate road traffic speed information, showing congestion and suggesting faster routes, so I am grateful for some other users having location on :)

So how does Google know what traffic is like on the roads, nearly all the time? From our smartphones, of course. Whether you like it or not, “telephone companies have always known where your phone is,” Dobson says, because cell phone companies need to use location to appropriately charge customers for calls. That means the companies are constantly monitoring location based on the strength of signal to a cell tower, which allows the phone to switch towers as it travels. Since 2011, the Federal Communications Commission has also required that phones come with GPS, so between the triangulation with cell towers and the GPS requirement, your phone is a marked man.

Google realized that as more and more people continued to switch to smartphones, they had a miniature army of traffic monitors that they could make use of. Thus, the traffic flow that you see on your map is a highly accurate real-time display of the number of Android phones that are currently trying to make that same trek. Basically, they’ve crowd-sourced traffic information (a spokesperson for Google directed us to this explanation of the process). Of course, Google uses its own algorithms to exclude anomalies, like a postman who chooses to stop much more frequently than the average driver. Dobson also notes that there must be a threshold for how much data they have before they’re willing to label a road green, yellow, or red, rather than gray (which means there isn’t enough data), but they’re not releasing that number.

Now, this has stirred up some controversy about whether the process is an invasion of privacy. But both Dobson and Zhan Guo, a transportation policy professor at New York University, nearly laughed when asked about privacy concerns. That ship has already sailed. Google explains that people can opt in or out of sharing their travel data with Google under their phones’ settings. But the company does note that they do try to protect the information–Google itself doesn’t even know what data is coming from which car, and they cut off the first few minutes and last few minutes of each trip in order to further disguise them.

If you choose to opt in, you’re helping to provide what’s already a very helpful service–users get more realistic estimates on how long their drive will be, and they’re more prepared to hit traffic. Guo suggests that what Google offers is even more helpful than what a traditional traffic reporter can give, say over the radio or through road-side alerts. Not only is it more likely that Google’s information is more up-to-date, but you get to see Google’s maps as a visualization. For traffic information, Guo says this type of visualization directly over a map will always be more influential than your average radio update.
 
Lara said:
This hidden tracking without anyone's knowledge has been going on for a long time apparently. I new someone a decade ago who tracked her boyfriend's whereabouts because she didn't trust him. He'd say he was going to his Mother's house and she'd find him on the phone at a bar. I never asked he how she did it. I think I was too shocked to believe it or something. But this video made me realize how true it is. For those who can't get the video but want to turn off this hidden tracking in their phone, here's how:

1. Go to SETTINGS
2. Go to PRIVACY
3. Go to LOCATION SERVICES
4. Go to SYSTEM SERVICES
5. Go to LOCATIONS
6. Shut FREQUENT LOCATIONS off
Click to expand...


Are you kidding.? I'm looking for company and I'm not fussy either.
 
I don't believe there is a way to "shut off" the tracking device in a phone. The need to "know" its location is built into its function. While you may think you lead a drab existence; there are corporations, who are quite willing to pay for information about you, and thousands of other like you. That information is a glimmer of which products and services you, and your unknown friends, will be buying in the near future.
 
My cell phone is an $8 burner from Wally World. If I don't want someone to track me I'll just toss it onto the back of a truck going in the opposite direction that I am. Just like people do in the movies.:)
 
"Tracking" does not only mean where are, but how you use your phone, and who you talk to, and for how long, and they can amass, by way of your tel. number, information from your credit card accounts, and social media accounts.
 
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