Location Settings

[KhaoYai]

I have a Samsung mobile running Andriod.  I have never had the location setting turned on at my home location yet I am receiving marketing targeted specifically at and naming, my village in the UK.  How can this be?  What else do I have to do to keep my location private?

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

What else do I have to do to keep my location private?

Never connect to your mobile phone provider. Otherwise they know with which tower your phone connects.

And if you use WiFi that is also used to locate you. To put is simple: You can't keep your location private.

 

[phetphet]

Probably some of the apps that you have downloaded. Facebook and Google both collect  a lot of information about people for advertising etc. Although Android was /is  developed by Google so good luck with that.

 

Apps like LinkedIn also. I haven't had an Android phone for a while now so can't remember the set up, but is there a privacy setting you can alter to suit your preference?

[HB9CPW]

trash ALL devices with internet connection

[J Town]

I get a monthly email from Google showing exactly where I've been - including photos of the venues. Big Brother is truly watching.

[KhaoYai]

12 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Never connect to your mobile phone provider. Otherwise they know with which tower your phone connects.

And if you use WiFi that is also used to locate you. To put is simple: You can't keep your location private.

 

This particular phone rarely leaves my home, I use it for business only.  As there is no mobile signal at my home, triangulation via the mobile network couldn't work.

 

If my location can be discovered, it begs the question - what does the location on/off button actually do?

[sometimewoodworker]

8 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

This particular phone rarely leaves my home, I use it for business only.  As there is no mobile signal at my home, triangulation via the mobile network couldn't work.

You forget that you are almost certainly logged into a google service on another device and you are definitely using web pages with google tags on them. 
 

It is possible to, theoretically, hide your location from Google. However it’s totally impossible to hide your location from your telephone service provider, if they share data with Google then Google has your location all the time. 

[OneMoreFarang]

2 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

This particular phone rarely leaves my home, I use it for business only.  As there is no mobile signal at my home, triangulation via the mobile network couldn't work.

 

If my location can be discovered, it begs the question - what does the location on/off button actually do?

To do anything with your phone you need a connection. If you don't use a mobile phone provider then I guess you use WiFi. And with any internet connection you have an IP address. And that IP address is often good enough to find your location - not exact but at least down to town level.

I guess, but I am not sure, that with the location off button you can switch off GPS. And if that is really off then your location is not published down to a meter accuracy. But as you discovered already often the location doesn't have to be exact.

 

This might be interesting for you:

How to see your location history on Android (nerdschalk.com)

 

If we like it or not I think we must live with the fact that our location (with mobile phone) is no secret anymore. And search and email servers and application usage and and and can all be checked by the computer guys from the internet and mobile phone providers. And with that I assume NSA and others know everything. I don't know how much they care about you and me. But I am sure if they want they will have a ton of data about everybody. And in real life it is basically impossible to do anything about this situation. 

[KhaoYai]

6 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

It is possible to, theoretically, hide your location from Google. However it’s totally impossible to hide your location from your telephone service provider, if they share data with Google then Google has your location all the time. 

Even if I'm not using/cannot use the mobile network?

[Pmbkk]

 

Standard GPS

[fdsa]

14 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

I have never had the location setting turned on at my home location yet I am receiving marketing targeted specifically at and naming, my village in the UK. 

 

they could determine the city by your IP address. Try switching on VPN and checking which city these ads will show now.

 

  

13 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

To do anything with your phone you need a connection. If you don't use a mobile phone provider then I guess you use WiFi. And with any internet connection you have an IP address. And that IP address is often good enough to find your location - not exact but at least down to town level.

 

↑ ↑ ↑ this.

 

  

14 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I guess, but I am not sure, that with the location off button you can switch off GPS.

you are very correct by not being sure ????

the GPS is controlled by the modem, not the mobile phone, and it's on modem's discretion if it will disable GPS or not when user taps that button.

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

14 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

Even if I'm not using/cannot use the mobile network?

If you can use your phone, then absolutely. 
 

the only way to stop your phone provider getting your location is switching the phone off and taking the battery out. But then of course you can’t make or get calls

[KhaoYai]

22 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

If you can use your phone, then absolutely. 
 

the only way to stop your phone provider getting your location is switching the phone off and taking the battery out. But then of course you can’t make or get calls

I don't see how the phone provider, by which I presume you mean the network provider can get my location - not through their network as there is no signal here at all.

[KhaoYai]

I've nothing to hide and its not really important that my location is known - I was just surpised that I could be pinpointed down to what is a fairly remote location with the location button set to off.

[tifino]

 

with the Samsung, and I guess other Androids... the Samsung Power Settings can be changed to one of 2 or 3 different levels of battery saving

 

The deepest level of Savings is usually called Ultra etc which features the culling of all means of communication except for the basic Calls and SMS. This Mode also disabl;es all but a basic list of Functions/Apps 

[tifino]

2 minutes ago, tifino said:

 

with the Samsung, and I guess other Androids... the Samsung Power Settings can be changed to one of 2 or 3 different levels of battery saving

 

The deepest level of Savings is usually called Ultra etc which features the culling of all means of communication except for the basic Calls and SMS. This Mode also disabl;es all but a basic list of Functions/Apps 

earlier models access to Saving in Settings is via the 'Battery' category - and often only has the One setting - being 'Ultra Power Saving Mode

 

Later models access to Saving, in the Settings, is labelled as 'Power Saving;

 and of maybe at least 2 Models; called Power Saving Mode, and Ultra Power Saving Mode

 

Either way - the Ultra Power Saving Mode always disables Location Services as a part of the App culling

[sometimewoodworker]

10 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

I don't see how the phone provider, by which I presume you mean the network provider can get my location - not through their network as there is no signal here at all.

And yet you are posting. ???? so your location is known by the information from your computer/(phone used as a computer)

[Pmbkk]

12 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

I don't see how the phone provider, by which I presume you mean the network provider can get my location - not through their network as there is no signal here at all.

 

All mobiles are stored via last known location / GPS. The location signal doesn't matter unless you want to be more accurate - you turn that on and it will tell you the weather in your village.

[KhaoYai]

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

And yet you are posting. ???? so your location is known by the information from your computer/(phone used as a computer)

Nope, I'm posting from my laptop.

[sometimewoodworker]

48 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

Nope, I'm posting from my laptop.

You do realise that your laptop IS a computer !! So that reply makes no sense.
 

also you are probably being tracked in the ways I mentioned because you are using a computer. 

[KhaoYai]

13 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

You do realise that your laptop IS a computer !! So that reply makes no sense.
 

also you are probably being tracked in the ways I mentioned because you are using a computer. 

Yes of course I know that but that was not my concern.  My main point is that its not unreasonable to consider that the location of a phone is not being tracked if a). Its not connected to the mobile network and b). The location button is switched to off.

 

It seems from the replies that the location button is a complete waste of time.

[OneMoreFarang]

7 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

It seems from the replies that the location button is a complete waste of time.

That is a wonderful summary.

As far as I see it the location button is there to give users the feeling that they are in control. They are not.

[sometimewoodworker]

6 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

My main point is that its not unreasonable to consider that the location of a phone is not being tracked if a). Its not connected to the mobile network and b). The location button is switched to off.

It is certainly reasonable to think that and a company that bases it’s whole business model on tracking you so you are a more valuable product to be sold will want you to think that. 
The points you are missing are that if you have ever signed into a google account on your laptop it’s location is linked to you, that your phone location is linked to you, that the location button, even if it does actually function, may well not work in the way you would like, and that nothing you do to any setting on the phone stops your cell carrier tracking you, as they must know where your phone is to be able to direct calls to it and that they may be selling your location information which if it’s going to google even if it’s not identified by the carrier is trivially easy for google to link exactly to you. 
 

Why do you think that google, Facebook & Twitter are so angry at Apple with the introduction in iOS 14.5 of real tracking blocking across apps and directly. If it’s not clear it’s because they have just chopped the value of the data that any company can collect down by a significant amount. 
 

it certainly is not clear that google who owns Android has the slightest interest in reducing the value of the data it collects from people using its software. 
 

So does the button do anything? Yes it does. 
Does it do what you think it does? Maybe. 
Can you will be identified even if it works? Absolutely, without a doubt. 

[BritManToo]

2 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

It is certainly reasonable to think that and a company that bases it’s whole business model on tracking you so you are a more valuable product to be sold will want you to think that. 

Why would I care if they were tracking me?

I'm not doing anything secret or private.

[sometimewoodworker]

8 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Why would I care if they were tracking me?

I'm not doing anything secret or private.

Many/most people don’t care, or understand that they can’t do much, until recently to do anything, to stop it. 
 

Why should my location make money for anyone if I’m not getting anything of value in return?  is a more interesting question. 
 

That gets a rather different answer from lots of people. 

[KhunHeineken]

On 6/2/2021 at 9:51 AM, OneMoreFarang said:

Never connect to your mobile phone provider. Otherwise they know with which tower your phone connects.

And if you use WiFi that is also used to locate you. To put is simple: You can't keep your location private.

 

 

You may find this interesting.  

 

No sim card/s and no cellular data.  Not connected to WiFi. 

 

The phone still tracks you, it just can't upload.  As soon as a sim card goes in, or you connect to WiFi, all the information goes to Google.  

 

You want to keep your location private, don't take a phone with you.  

 

 

 

[KhaoYai]

7 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

The points you are missing are that if you have ever signed into a google account on your laptop it’s location is linked to you, that your phone location is linked to you, that the location button, even if it does actually function, may well not work in the way you would like, and that nothing you do to any setting on the phone stops your cell carrier tracking you, as they must know where your phone is to be able to direct calls to it

You're making far more of this than I originally asked - I am fully aware of the data collection done by google and others on any device that is connected to the internet.  I was simply surprised that a button on my phone marked 'Location' seems to actually do nothing.  Even with that switched to off, my location was traced to a small village containing just 31 houses.

 

I would however, take issue with you regarding my mobile network being able to track my phone - if they can't get a signal to my phone in my home location, how would they do that?  I have to travel almost 3 miles to get a signal.  They do not in fact direct calls to my phone, not at my home location or anywhere within 3 miles of it - because thay have no mast capable of reaching my location.  Nor does my network support wifi calling.  I would suggest they can only know where my phone is if they can send a signal to it. Surely that is entirely different to google tracking me via GPS.

[topt]

6 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

I would suggest they can only know where my phone is if they can send a signal to it

As others have said if your phone is connected to wi fi at your home then they can potentially get a close enough location from that.

Location does not have to be on as there are many apps that send out information to various servers without you even noticing it. The only way to stop them (if you can be bothered) is using some kind of firewall/vpn combination to stop them being able to send any data and/or spoofing your location.......

It will also depend on what iteration of android your phone is using as to what the apps can theoretically get away with.......