![]() It followed her hiking with her dog and staying at her ex-boyfriend’s home, information she found disturbing.” What kind of information does geotracking reveal?īy looking at your location data, anyone can discover the following: The app tracked her as she went to a Weight Watchers meeting and to her dermatologist’s office for a minor procedure. Magrin’s identity was not disclosed in those records, The Times was able to easily connect her to that dot. It recorded her whereabouts as often as every two seconds, according to a database of more than a million phones in the New York area that was reviewed by The New York Times. “An app on the device gathered her location information, which was then sold without her knowledge. Although the information is anonymized, it can reveal your real-time movements with disturbing accuracy-successfully tracking your position to within a few yards.Ī recent New York Times article described how the reporters were able to track a woman and learn an astonishing amount of personal details about her just by examining the location data gathered by her smartphone. When you enable location tracking services on your phone or in an app, you allow dozens of data-gathering companies to collect detailed geolocation data about you, which they then sell to advertisers. People also manually add geotags to their photos on apps like Instagram to make them more searchable. This information identifies where you were when you took the picture and travels with your photos when you post them on the Internet. This data includes GPS coordinates, which most cell phones and digital cameras automatically embed, or geotag, in every photo you take. Individuals can also track your location through the metadata attached to the photos you share online. Has your personal information been exposed online? Remove my information For example, Facebook still uses IP address and other data such as your profile city and your check-ins to target ads to you. And some of these companies continue to track you even if you have location data turned off in the app’s settings. In fact, more than 1,000 apps, including Yelp, Foursquare, Google Maps, Uber, MapMyRun, Tinder, and Facebook, use location tracking services. Many of the apps you use (and the companies behind them) also track you. When you are on a mobile device, such as a cell phone or tablet, individuals can track your location via GPS or through a combination of cellular tower data, Wi-Fi signals, and Bluetooth beacons. If you use a computer, your IP address can narrow down your location. People can track your location through your devices. To protect yourself, you need to learn what kind of location-based data you are sharing online and how this data poses a threat to your online privacy-as well as your physical self. While using location-based services in apps like Google Maps, Foursquare, and Uber can make our lives more convenient, there are real risks in doing so. This post has been modified to reflect new information since its original publication.
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