Social media is progressively becoming the new future of information, beating physical media on a reach vs cost scale. As these social media apps grow more popular in the world, the more scared we must be for the privacy flaws lured through smartphones where these apps reside. A classic example is Facebook that has had issues with US lawmakers over private information sharing allegations. Facebook is not alone however, many apps developed using the open source frameworks also collect your location in the background periodically.
Even on smartphones dominated by Google’s very own Android operating system, installed apps privately sharing your location data can easily be stopped if you tackle the right settings. However, IOS and Windows all pose challenges regarding the same matter but worry not, we have a few simple do it yourself (DIY) procedures you can implement to have control over your location data.
Periodically Turn off Location services
Turning off your smartphone location services is the first step towards controlling your location data online. Several apps like ride-hailing services and Google maps require location services to be turned on for app usage.
However, you can choose to only toggle your On button whenever you really need it! In this way, you are actually revoking background access to any private apps that could be consuming on your movements.
Revoke/manage application rights
Updated Android smartphones like those we’ve managed to review have default rights popups that come up each time an app would like to use your location whether in the background or vice-versa. However, not everyone loves fancy updates to switch to Android 8.0 or IOS 12. Hence, you can toggle and revoke unknown location rights by an app through your phone settings.
On Android
- Open Settings
- Go to Security
- Open or turn on App permissions to manage individual app permissions
On IOS
- Go to settings
- Select Privacy
- Choose Location to manage or revoke list of apps using the function
Download a troubleshooter to identify sharing apps
Many troubleshooters exist on the Google play store and Apple store with premium versions for the latter. In this case, we downloaded “app permissions watcher) for Android to list which apps use which feature and this is where you can identify a background app silently using location features and follow procedure 2 above to revoke the right if accessible.
When using a smartphone, not every app is useful on the phone for specific rights. For instance, an app may request for location services yet all it does is lift up your camera LED light as a torch. However, location services are required for apps like Google maps and all those based on its API or social media apps like Facebook and Twitter. Henceforth, you can always double check the apps you trust with your location data before a stranger tricks you into knowing your lone area code, since a majority of the smartphone apps request for internet rights in their manifest to share data online.
