{"id":24579,"date":"2024-05-29T07:10:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T15:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/29\/news-18309\/"},"modified":"2024-05-29T07:10:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T15:10:19","slug":"news-18309","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/29\/news-18309\/","title":{"rendered":"How to turn off location tracking on Android"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Android devices come with location services. Some apps need access to location services to function properly. However, there may be reasons why you don\u2019t want your device to be located, often because you don\u2019t want to be found and the device is always with you.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on who you are trying to hide your location from, there are several levels of hiding your location.<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclaimer: the exact instructions for your make and model of Android device may look a bit different.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-turn-off-location-for-particular-apps\">Turn off location for particular apps<\/h2>\n<p>There are apps active on most Android devices that could give away the location of the device. To check which apps have access to your device\u2019s location:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Swipe down from the top of the screen.<\/li>\n<li>Find the Location icon <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"20\" height=\"20\" class=\"wp-image-110982\" style=\"width: 20px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/05\/location-medum.png\" alt=\"location pin\"><\/li>\n<li>Touch and hold Location.<\/li>\n<li>Tap App location permissions.<\/li>\n<li>Under <strong>Allowed all the time<\/strong>, <strong>Allowed only while in use<\/strong>, and <strong>Not allowed<\/strong>, find the apps that can use your device&#8217;s location.<\/li>\n<li>To change the app&#8217;s permissions, tap it. Then, choose the location access for the app.<\/li>\n<li>If you see any apps that you don\u2019t recognize, be sure to turn the permission off.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"346\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/05\/Android_location_1.png\" alt=\"location in main settings menu on Android\" class=\"wp-image-110981\" \/><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-turn-off-location-entirely\">Turn off location entirely<\/h2>\n<p>Alternatively, you can turn Location off entirely:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Swipe down from the top of the screen.<\/li>\n<li>Find the location icon <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"20\" height=\"20\" class=\"wp-image-110982\" style=\"width: 20px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/05\/location-medum.png\" alt=\"location pin\"><\/li>\n<li>If it\u2019s highlighted, tap it to turn it off.<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019ll see a warning that some apps may not function properly. Confirm by tapping <strong>Close<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"396\" height=\"213\" src=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/05\/Android_location_2.png\" alt=\"No location access warning Android\" class=\"wp-image-110983\" \/><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-turn-off-find-my-device\">Turn off Find My Device<\/h2>\n<p>Find My Device is a service which makes your device\u2019s most recent location available to the first account activated on the device. Find My Device is included with most Android phones, and it&#8217;s automatically turned on once you add a Google account to your device.<\/p>\n<p>How to turn off <strong>Find My Device:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Open <strong>Settings<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Tap (<strong>Biometrics &amp;<\/strong>) <strong>Security<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Tap <strong>Find My Device<\/strong>, then tap the switch to turn it off.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Turning off Find My Device may backfire if you ever truly need to find your device because you lost it. But if someone may have the login credentials for the Google account associated with the phone, you may want to turn it off.<\/p>\n<p>The last resort is to turn your phone off.<\/p>\n<p>Even in airplane mode, GPS on your phone is still working. As long as a phone isn\u2019t turned off, it\u2019s possible to track the location because the device sends signals to nearby cell towers. Even when it\u2019s turned off, the service provider or internet provider can show the last location once it\u2019s switched back on.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator alignfull has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" \/>\n<p><strong>We don\u2019t just report on phone security\u2014we provide it<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/ios\">downloading Malwarebytes for iOS<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/android\">Malwarebytes for Android<\/a> today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/blog\/news\/2024\/05\/how-to-turn-off-location-tracking-on-android\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> This post explains how to disable various location services on Android devices. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[10462,31478,17527,32,12507],"class_list":["post-24579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-android","tag-find-my-device","tag-location-tracking","tag-news","tag-permissions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}