Post by @chillpanzee

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@pineapple@lemmy.ml on lemmy.ml Open parent

Is GPS private?

I can’t believe I’ve never thought about this and that no one is really talking about it. GPS is a system that everyone uses everyday on there phone and is constantly tracking your location.

Many people here (including myself) use airplane mode to block mobile data signals so that mobile data companies cannot track your location and sell it to data brokers. But airplane mode doesn’t block GPS (I just tested this now on my phone, maybe your phone works differently). Is GPS somehow designed in a way so that it’s private?

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chillpanzee in !privacy

@chillpanzee@lemmy.ml · Mar 03

GPS is not bidirectional communication, so the systems themselves (ie GNSS) aren’t tracking you just because you receive the signal. But…

In addition to GPS, airplane mode also doesn’t shut off the Wifi or bluetooth radios; it’s usually just the cell radio.
Your phone OS has several ways of tracking and recording your location, activities, and movements, and it generally does this at all times. For example, Find My even works when the battery on an iPhone is “dead.”
Phones may fallback to BTLE mesh networks (like AirTags), or do background WIFI location scanning to track and record your phone’s location. Turning these off does prevent you and 3rd party apps from using the features, just not the OS.

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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Created: November 15, 2019

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