7 Apps You Probably Didn’t Know Were Tracking Your Location—And How To Disable It For Your Security

We’ve gotten to the point where the question isn’t “which apps track your location,” but “which apps don’t ask to track your location?” It’s important to assume when downloading an app that it will ask for as many permissions as it can get — including your location, in many cases. You can prevent these apps from overstepping their mark and taking more information about you then they need by denying their permission requests unless you feel comfortable with them and adjusting your location settings.

But first, here are seven apps that may surprise you when it comes to their ability to track your location.

It’s in a shopping app’s best interests to track your location for one obvious reason: doing so means they can better target you with advertisements for shops that are located near you.

Weather apps need to know your location so that they can tell you the forecast in your area. But do they need to track your location even when you aren’t calling up the temperature and humidity? No. Unless you are adjusting your phone’s location settings, and we’ll get to that in a minute, weather apps may use your location information for other reasons, including to target you with ads.