Tracking location is a handy and convenient thing that technology offers. But there are privacy issues with this as well, as your location can be easily tracked by the apps that you have on your Android or iOS device.
There are several companies that track your location and then sell all this data to marketing firms. This is how you get relevant ads as you browse anything. With a few simple steps, you can make sure that any of the apps that you have on your device are not tracking your location.
So How Can Tell If Any Of The Apps On Your Device Are Sharing Your Location?
It is really difficult to be sure that any of the location data companies are tracking your mobile phones. Most of the apps these days share your location data and share that with other companies as they mention that in their privacy policy which is completely ignored by most of the users.
These long privacy policies have a dense and technical language that can confuse any average reader. Most of the apps that try to use data based on location often describe that this data will be used for market analysis only.
There is no definite list that you can refer to, to find about such apps. However, apps related to weather, sports updates, travel, shopping deals, and dating are most likely to use location services.
How You Can Stop Location Tracking In Different Apps?
You may be aware of the fact that Google is tracking your location when you use Google Maps, but there are several android apps that also share you location data through these in-built apps. It is possible for you to stop apps from sharing your location but as you turn this feature it may affect some of the apps such as Uber, Google Maps, etc.
Is It Possible To Delete Your Location Data From These Databases?
As there is a limited number of rules and regulations that govern the location data industry it is quite difficult for users to delete their data or to get access to the data. Moreover, it is possible that all of your information is shared with other companies and there is no identification number that is associated with it. Also, the companies are under no obligation to delete your information or give you access.
In order to prevent this from happening, people have the legal right to request a copy of all the data about them that is there in the company’s database. They can even ask the companies to delete that data as well.
Stopping Google Tracking Through Your Android Device:
In order to disable your android device from feeding on your location data, you can go to “SETTINGS” opening your different accounts that are there on Google. There you can select the account name that you need to modify. As you click on “GOOGLE ACCOUNT” you will be directed on the next page where you need to find “MANAGE YOUR DATA AND PERSONALIZATION”. Under “ACTIVITY CONTROL” you can customize various activities and app preferences. This is where you easily delete all of your location-based data.
Disabling Location Tracking On Your Android Device:
Similar to the above process, you can easily stop your Android device from recording or using you location without your permission. You just have to open “SETTING” in your device and locate “SECURITY AND LOCATION” there. All the apps that are using location-based data will appear there. You can easily turn off the “USE LOCATION” option there.
In addition to this, you should click on the “ADVANCED” button to open 4 categories in Google’s location services that are :
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Emergency Location Service.
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Location Accuracy
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Location History
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Location Sharing
Disabling Google Tracking:
In order to stop Google and its services to track your location with the help of a browser. You just have to visit https://myactivity.google.com/ and there you go to the “ACTIVITY CONTROLS” that you will found on the left side of the menu. You can now select the services that you need and turn off those you do not. This may take a little while as there are a lot of services listed there and you might not be familiar with them all. You can do research on your part and select what is best for you. You can even delete your App and Web activities, device information, and location history from there.
This is a way through which you can prevent Google from collecting your personal data. In order to delete the previously collected data, you just move to the “MY ACTIVITY” page and there you can tap on “DELETE ACTIVITY BY” that you will find in the menu that is there on the left side. One also gets the option to filter their data by keyword, date, and app.
In a similar way, you can disable location services from your browser and from popular social media platforms. If you are using an iOS device that you just have to open “SETTINGS” and turn off “LOCATION” from there.
It is really important for all the users to make sure that any of the apps that they use are not misusing their personal data. There are many possible threats as these apps share location and browsing data of their users.
