iPhone scams are on the rise, phishing emails and texts seem to appear on our phones daily, and we’re hearing more and more about the need to protect our data. Our phones are so important to our everyday lives that it makes sense they would contain tons of information about us, including our locations. Several apps require our locations to function properly and provide the conveniences we’ve come to expect from them. You likely won’t bat an eye thinking about how Apple Maps or another app with GPS like Waze contains your location. Make perfect sense because they need your location to get you from Point A to Point B, right?
But what about other apps that are quietly locating you and possibly storing this data? You may not be aware of the number of apps, including pre-installed apps that you didn’t choose to download, that contain this information. Some of these apps can be deleted. You likely wouldn’t want to delete other apps, but should know they are privy to your location so that you can enable settings that limit their permissions.
These five pre-installed apps could be tracking your location — we’ll tell you how to limit what they track and when they can track it.
1. Google Calendar
Whenever you schedule an event on Google Calendar, you can enter a location and the app will conveniently provide a map and travel times based on your current location. The app uses location services from your phone, as well as data from your Google Account, to track your location. To keep this from happening, you can simply not add addresses to Google Calendar, or go to Settings > Apps > Google Calendar > Permissions > Location and turn off Location.
2. Find My
The entire point of “Find My” is to share locations with your family and friends. This allows them to see where you are in real time, either for security or recreational purposes. If things have gotten a little out of hand with this app and you want to stop sharing your location with certain people, open Find My App and go to People. Tap on the person for whom you would like to cut off access to your location and tap “Stop Sharing My Location.”
3. Weather
This is probably the least surprising of all: the Weather app needs your locations to provide you with up-to-date weather reports in your area. You can, however, control when it accesses your location. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services. Scroll down to find Weather. Choose among these options: Never, Ask Next Time, and While Using the App. These options give you more control over when this app accesses your location.
4. Siri
Siri uses your phone’s GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth to provide you with location-based suggestions. For example, anytime you ask about the nearest gas station or steak restaurant in an area, it has to utilize your location to come up with answers. Limit Siri’s access to your location by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and adjusting how frequently it calls up this data.
5. Photos
Have you ever wondered how your phone automatically knows that photo you took was shot at a certain museum in a certain city? The iPhone Photos app uses your location to geo-tag photos and even organize them in your folder by location. In fact, when you want to search for photos, this allows you to look them up based on their location. If you find this less a convenience and more creepy, limit Photos’ access to your location by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and choosing among the options Never, Ask Next Time, and While Using the App.
