Your iPhone uses information from your internet service (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS) to identify your location and, since you almost always carry your mobile with you, your own location as well. That information can be useful for many things, such as informing others where you are or finding your phone when you lose it. However, other times this information goes, without your knowledge or consent, to multiple companies that are collecting data about you to sneak advertising banners, which generates serious privacy problems.
You are giving constant information of where you are
The good news is that you can adjust your preferences so that applications only access your location when necessary . Changing your location settings can vary from phone to phone, depending on the iPhone model you have and the version of iOS you’re running. The following instructions were tested on an iPhone 11 with iOS 15; if you have a different version of iOS, there shouldn’t be much of a difference. Here’s how to use location tracking on your iPhone:
Turn off location access for specific apps
Location data is useful for some applications (for example, if you want to order food, or a VTC) and essential for others (such as Maps). However, if an app asks for your location and you don’t think it needs to be shared for the location to work, you can disable location services for that particular app. Here’s how to do it:
Go to the settings or configuration menu of your phone. There, go to “Privacy”> “Location Services”. Most likely, “Location Services” is turned on. Unless you want to completely block all location services, you don’t have to worry about this.
Scroll down to find a list of all the apps that enable location services. This list will show the name of the application and the type of permission it has: “Never”, “Ask before sharing” or “While the application is in use”. If you want to change the access of a specific application to your location data, you just have to tap on it and choose between one of those options.
For more ways to limit access to location by applications, go to “System Services” at the bottom of the screen and then “Location Services”. Here, you can toggle location access for a number of things, including WiFi, time zone, emergency calls, and Apple News and App Store announcements that are relevant to your location.
On the left of your screen you may see a small arrow. A hollow arrow means that the selected application can access your location under certain conditions; A purple arrow means that the selected item used your location recently, while a gray arrow means that it used your location sometime in the last 24 hours.
