There are times when location settings is a truly convenient feature to have on your phone. Traveling to a friend’s house but can’t remember the address or how to get there? Location settings can remember — and can make your life that much easier by pulling up that info. But the setting may not be worth the privacy risks that can occur if that personal info falls into unwanted hands. According to Tech Expert Ben Tibbits, managing director at BroadbandDeals.co.uk, these are two scary reasons why you should say “no” when apps asks to track your location.
Be careful of oversharing
Walking around with your phone allows apps to track your every movement, but then what happens to that data is not always clear, Tibbits warns.
“And in many cases this data is actually being captured by third-party apps used by the main app company,” Tibbits says. “Anyone with access to your tracking data could in theory build up a detailed profile of your movements. They would know information such as where you live and where you work, the routes you take between locations, where you go in your time off, what time you leave home, and when your home is unoccupied.”
Although it may be unlikely that an app is doing this, Tibbits says the thought is pretty scary, and most of us would not want someone unknown to us to have this level of information about our daily lives. “The best advice is to only activate location settings if it is essential for the functionality of the app,” he says.
Be wary of default location sharing
Some apps, such as Voxer, actually have location sharing switched on by default. “Many people might not realize this and be inadvertently sharing their exact location any time they send a message,” Tibbits says. The app, which Tibbits calls “a walkie-talkie style app,” allows for real time voice note conversations. “The two biggest groups of users are teenagers and small business owners, both groups that are likely to want to be able to hide their location,” he adds. “Apps like this have been at the center of bullying cases among young people, and if a child is being threatened or bullied, then inadvertently sharing their precise location with perpetrators could have serious consequences.”
Similarly, he adds, for small business owners who use the app to chat to customers, in a scenario where a customer is disgruntled about something, they would likely have easy access to your home address. “So never assume and always check an app’s default setting and make sure location sharing is switched off unless absolutely needed,” Tibbits says.
No matter how convenient it can be at times, the cons of Location settings don’t always outweigh the pros where privacy and personal data are concerned.
