How to see which apps are tracking your location on iphone

App Tracking Transparency allows you to choose whether an app can track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites for the purposes of advertising or sharing with data brokers.

With iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, apps must ask for permission before tracking your activity across other companies’ apps and websites. Tracking occurs when information that identifies you or your device collected from an app is linked with information that identifies you or your device collected on apps, websites and other locations owned by third parties for the purposes of targeted advertising or advertising measurement, or when the information collected is shared with data brokers. Learn more about app tracking and other privacy controls.

If an app asks to track your activity

If you see a request to track your activity, you can tap Allow or Ask App Not to Track. You can still use the full capabilities of the app, regardless of whether you allow the app to track your activity.

The app developer can customize part of the message to explain why the app is asking to track your activity. You can also visit the app’s product page in the App Store for more details about how the app developer uses your data.

If you choose Ask App Not to Track, the app developer can’t access the system advertising identifier (IDFA), which is often used to track. The app is also not permitted to track your activity using other information that identifies you or your device, like your email address.

Manage activity tracking permissions

At any time, you can change your mind and give or withdraw permission for an app to track your activity.

1. Go to Privacy settings to see a list of apps that requested to track your activity. On iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, go to Settings > Privacy > Tracking. On Apple TV, go to Settings > General > Privacy > Tracking.
2. Tap to turn off or turn on permission to track for a specific app.

If you turn off “Allow Apps to Request to Track” in privacy settings, you’ll stop seeing prompts from apps that want to track your activity. Each app that asks for permission to track while this setting is turned off will be treated as if you tapped Ask App Not to Track. You can also choose to ask all apps that you previously allowed to track to stop tracking your activity. Or you can allow just the apps to which you previously gave permission to continue to track your activity.

In some circumstances, the “Allow Apps to Request to Track” setting is disabled, including:

• For users with child accounts or under age 18 by birth year, signed in with their Apple ID*
• If your Apple ID is managed by an educational institution or uses a configuration profile that limits tracking
• If your Apple ID was created in the last 3 days

In these cases, all apps that request to track are denied permission by default and do not receive the IDFA. If the status of your account or device changes, and you subsequently choose to enable “Allow Apps to Ask to Track,” then the app’s next request to track will display the permission prompt to you.

* Child account age varies by country and region.

Oliver Haslam is a professional freelance writer with nearly ten years of experience. His work has been published on Macworld, PCMag, 1Password’s blog, and other websites. He writes about all things Apple. Read more.

Apps on your iPhone can track your location, but you have to give them access first. Here’s how to check which apps can monitor your GPS location and revoke their access.

As important as privacy is, letting some apps track our location makes them much more useful—and sometimes it’s essential. It’s unreasonable to expect Google Maps to work as it should without Google knowing your location, but does that note-taking app need to know where you are? Maybe, maybe not.

Where you stand on these things is a personal decision, and it’s not one we’re here to argue. We’re here to show how to take control of which apps know your location, and when they’re allowed to track it.

It’s also important to remember that some apps need your location data to do their job. Revoking access to your location can stop some important features from working. Keep that in mind when checking which apps can and cannot access your data.

How to See Which Apps Are Tracking You

To see a list of apps that have requested access to your location data, open the Settings app and tap “Privacy.”

Next, tap “Location Services.”

The next screen will show every app that can request access to your location data. You can also see whether you’ve granted that access and, if so, whether the app can access your location at all times or only when you’re using it.

To drill into a specific app, tap it.

Here you can see three different options (and a tick beside the active one):

• Never: The app will never be allowed to access your location data.
• When Using the App: Whenever the app is open and active—in other words, when it’s on your iPhone’s screen—it will be allowed to access your data.
• Always: As the name suggests, if this option is selected the app will be able to access your data whenever it requests it.

How to Revoke Access to Location Data

If you decide that you no longer want an app to have access to your location data, you can revoke that access. Open Settings and again tap “Privacy.”

Tap “Location Services.”

Tap the name of the app for which you want to revoke access.

To ensure that the app can no longer access your location data, tap “Never.”

How to Tell When an App is Accessing Location Data in the Background

If an app is accessing your location data but isn’t active—in other words, if it’s accessing your location in the background when you’re not using it—iOS will display a blue notification along the top of the screen to alert you.

If you see this notification and don’t know which app is the culprit, tapping it will launch the app in question. You can head to Settings > Privacy > Location Services, tap the app’s name, and tap “Never” or “While Using the App” to prevent it from accessing your location in the background.

Story by

Ivan Mehta

Story by

Ivan Mehta

Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.” Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.”

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff.

Last year, with iOS 13, Apple introduced a new setting that lets an app use your location data only once. With the introduction of iOS 14, the company has made a change to let you give out an approximate location to apps.

Along with that, you can also check what apps have recently accessed your location at a glance. We’ll tell you how you can do both in just a few steps.

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To check what apps accessed your location:

• Go to Setting > Privacy on your iPhone
• Tap on Location Services
• You can look at icons next to the apps to determine if they have accessed your location recently or in the last 24 hours.

Location access of apps on iOS 14

Once you’ve seen how much permission apps have to your location data, you may want to change it or give them approximate location data. To do that, tap on any app when you’re on the location data screen. You’ll be able to see the level of permission and precise location toggle under the app, and you can change that if you want to.

These settings give you more control over the data you share with apps, and it makes it difficult for them to track you. So, you should give a precise location only to the app that you trust.

If you’ve recently installed iOS 14, you might want to check out our guides for changing your default browser and mail app.

Guess what? A bunch of apps like knowing where you are, so that their developers can then take that data, package it up for various advertising companies, and make a quick buck off of your precise whereabouts—including where you go and how long you spend there.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, given that many apps directly prompt you to share this information as part of the exchange, or what I like to call “ that unspoken agreement where you give free apps information about you in exchange for not having to pay for their usefulness.” But, really, coughing up your location information can happen in any kind of app: free, paid, subscription-based, et cetera.

The New York Times recently took a giant look at this common practice, and the results are as illuminating as they are frustrating:

“To evaluate location-sharing practices, The Times tested 20 apps, most of which had been flagged by researchers and industry insiders as potentially sharing the data. Together, 17 of the apps sent exact latitude and longitude to about 70 businesses. Precise location data from one app, WeatherBug on iOS, was received by 40 companies. When contacted by The Times, some of the companies that received that data described it as ‘unsolicited’ or ‘inappropriate.’”

How to lock down your location

There are a few tricks you can use to keep apps from tracking where you are. First and foremost, don’t agree to share your location with them. Easy as that. Apps aren’t always the most forthcoming about how your data will be used in addition to whatever they claim—for example, a weather app might say it needs to know where you are all the time to warn you if it’s going to rain (fair), but fails to mention that it’s going to ship this information off to another company. Or, worse, it buries this little omission in some privacy policy you both know you’re never going to read.

Some apps need to know where you are to work correctly. Many that don’t need tracking data request access, but you can change your settings to stop this. (Photo: Anatoliy Sizov / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images)

We used to download apps, enable permissions, and share data without giving it a second thought. These days, most people want more control over their info.

That starts with protecting yourself from endless data breaches, leaks, and hacks. When was the last time you checked to make sure your info isn’t floating around the web for anyone to find? Tap or click to check your email address against a database of major hacks.

Then you have to deal with the Big Tech giants. It’s hard to do much online without Google and Facebook knowing about it. Tap or click here for critical settings everyone should adjust to protect their privacy.

And what about all those apps on your phone? It’s easier than ever to see if they know exactly where you are – and stop it if you want to.

Your location is yours to protect

Some apps need to know where you are to work correctly. Many that don’t need this information, request access, and you probably said yes when you installed it.

On your iPhone or iPad, follow these steps to change your overall tracking preference:

• Tap Settings, navigate down to Privacy and tap Location Services.

• If the first slider is turned on, it means that apps can track you.

• Slide it off if you universally want to deny your device from using Location Services.

The list of apps displayed under Location Services has access to your location and how frequently it is used. Tap on a specific app if you want to change the settings. You can choose Never, Ask Next Time, While Using the App, or Always.

To take advantage of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, change its settings by tapping Settings, tapping Privacy, selecting Tracking, and toggling the Allow Apps to Request to Track off.

On Android, first, check to see which apps have access to your location:

• Swipe down from the top of the screen and press down on Location. If it’s not there, search your Settings menu and find Location.

• Tap App permission. You will see a list of apps that can access your location any time, only while it’s in use, or when you give permission.

You can change app permissions here, or try this method:

• On your home screen, find the app’s icon. Touch and hold the icon for the app you want to adjust.

• Tap the Info icon > Permissions > Location.

• Choose from All the time, Only while using the app, Ask every time, or Deny.

Things to keep in mind

Turning off location services disables your smartphone from tracking your location, but there are some disadvantages. The most obvious one is that apps like Maps, Uber and your weather app of choice won’t be able to determine your exact location.

To get around that, you can either change the setting so that apps only use your location when using the app or manually switch it on or off as needed.

Ending location tracking entirely can be a pain. Android and iOS provide built-in options to minimize and limit ad tracking if that’s more your speed.

Want more tips like this in your inbox? Get my Tech Tips newsletter. It’s packed with smart info you can use.

Stop ad tracking, too

These changes won’t stop companies from tracking your phone activities. They won’t limit the number of ads you see – but they will allow you to reset your advertising ID and unlink any targeted advertising profiles associated with your gadgets.

That means fewer creepy ads that make it clear advertisers know what you are up to online and what your preferences are.

On iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch:

• Go to Settings > Privacy.

• Tap Apple Advertising. Toggle Personalized Ads to Off.

• Go to Settings and tap Google.

• Tap Ads. Toggle on Opt out of ads personalization.

Check out my podcast “Kim Komando Explains” on Apple, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast player.

We think of our gadgets as helpful tools that make our lives easier, but they can also be turned against us. The data your devices collect is so valuable it could be used against you in a criminal trial, requested by the police, or even bought by the government through a data broker. I sit down with technologist Bennett Cyphers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and he reveals all the secrets you’re losing – and which devices do the most stealing.

Learn about all the latest technology on the Kim Komando Show, the nation’s largest weekend radio talk show. Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today’s digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website at Komando.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.

Do you know which apps on your phone are tracking your location? You may be sharing your location with apps, not realizing you’re doing it. If so, you may be giving up both privacy and battery life on your phone.

When you load a new app onto your phone, it may ask for some permissions. In your eagerness to start using the app, you may agree to everything without bothering to consider exactly what permissions you’re giving.

But not all apps are created equal and some apps may ask to track your location, even when they don’t need to. You may have allowed an app to track your location without realizing you did so.

If sharing your location information with the app benefits you, great. If if doesn’t, well, not so great.

Apps that track location can mean you’re giving up your privacy and using up battery power unnecessarily. Better to review your apps now and see whether and when they can access your location.

In iOS 11, location permissions have changed significantly. After you upgrade to iOS 11, be sure to check your location permission settings to make sure they work best for you.

You should also check your location permission settings if you have an Android phone to make sure they work best for you.

Which Apps Should Be Able to Track Your Location

You may have apps that need your location for them to work, such as maps, weather, or traffic apps. Without having access to your location, these type of apps would not be nearly as useful to you.

Other apps, such as gaming apps, may not need your location to work properly. But they may still ask for your location information. These apps may be collecting data to sell to third parties.

Do you really need to share your location with crossword puzzle app in order to play it? Probably not.

[tip] If you have concerns about how an app is using your location information, be sure to read the app’s privacy statement to see whether the developers share the location information they collect about you. [/tip]

Think about whether sharing your location with an app benefits you. If it doesn’t, then don’t allow that app to have your location information. Checking your location permissions takes just a few minutes but is an important task.

App Location Permissions with iPhone and iPad

Three Choices: Always, Never, While Using the App

On the iPhone and iPad, apps can ask for your permission to share your location three ways: Never, Always, or While Using the App.

Beginning with iOS 11, app developers who ask for location permission must offer “While Using the App” as an option.

Previously, apps could ask for your location to be shared Always or Never. This left you with a difficult choice of sharing your location with an app any time your phone was turned on, versus never, which meant not having any benefits of location services.

Now that all apps that request location permission must offer a third option, “While Using the App,” you have more control over when your location is tracked. You also can reduce the drain on your battery by changing app permissions from Always to While Using the App.

How to Check Your App Location Permissions

On your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app, then go to Privacy => Location Services.

You can turn off Location Services for all apps if you don’t want to be tracked or if you want to preserve your battery.

You’ll also see a Share My Location option. If you want to share your location with friends in Find My Friends or in iMessage, then tap on Share My Location. You can choose which device you wish to share your location with others and review which friends you are sharing your location with.

Below Share My Location, you will see a list of apps with which you can share your location. Next to each app you will see the permission the app has to access your location.

If an arrow is next to the app, then that app has recently accessed your location.

Tap an app to choose whether you will allow location access to the app. And, if you do allow access, whether you will allow the app to access your location always or only while using the app.

Some apps offer an explanation why they need permission to access your location.

Check the settings for each app to make sure you give location access only when it will benefit you.

Android Location Services

If you own an Android device, you should check permissions to see whether you are sharing your location only with the apps that actually need that information to work properly.

For Android devices, you can check location permissions by going to Settings => General => Location. (Note that Android devices tend to vary greatly with their settings. If these instructions don’t work for your phone, search the Web for instructions for your phone if you can’t find Location settings on your phone.)

Here you can turn off the switch to prevent any apps from accessing your location, to save battery life or when you don’t want to be tracked. But you probably have some apps that will be much more useful if they can access your location.

Here you can also see the battery usage for each app that uses location services, so you can find any battery hogs.

Location Accuracy

You can also control how accurate you want your location to be. High accuracy means that the phone uses GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile networks to locate you. But this mode uses the most battery.

You can also choose Battery Saving mode that only uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile networks, but does not use GPS.

Device Only mode uses only GPS but not Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or mobile networks to locate you.

Setting Location Permissions for Apps

You can see which apps have permission to track your location and change those permissions. Go to Settings => General => Applications => Configure apps (or App Settings).

Tap on an app to see the information about the application, including location permission.

Tap “Permissions” to change location permission.

Your Thoughts

Have you reviewed which apps are tracking your location? Did you change any of your location permissions? Have you ever been suspicious of an app that wanted to track your location?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!

* Phone with apps image courtesy of Saulo Mohana via Unsplash and Creative Commons

Mobile apps can track your location and sell the data to third parties. What can you do about it?

November 6, 2020

Some mobile apps track your location — and secretly report it to services that sell the data. You almost certainly use at least one such app without even knowing it. How do you find out which apps may be problematic — and what can you do about it?

Which mobile apps are tracking you?

When he saw a visualization of spring breakers from just one beach in Florida dispersing all over the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaspersky GReAT’s director, Costin Raiu thought not about the coronavirus, but about apps that track their users’ locations. The report used research including location data from X-Mode. But where did X-Mode get the data?

Well, X-Mode distributes an SDK — a component developers can embed in their apps — and, depending on the number of regular app users, pays developers monthly to include it. In return, the SDK harvests location data, as well as some data from the smartphone sensors, such as the gyroscope, and sends it to X-Mode servers. Later, X-Mode sells the allegedly anonymized data to whoever wants to buy it.

X-Mode claims the SDK doesn’t have a huge impact on battery life, using only about 1%–3% of the charge, so users basically won’t even notice the SDK and won’t be annoyed by it. X-Mode also says that harvesting data this way is “most definitely legal” and that the SDK is fully GDPR compliant.

How many of those tracking apps are there?

Raiu asked himself: Was he being tracked that way? The easiest way to find out was to identify the addresses of the command-and-control servers the tracking SDKs used — and to monitor outbound network traffic from his device. If an app on his smartphone was communicating with at least one such server, that would mean that he was in fact being tracked. To complete the task, Raiu needed to learn the server addresses. His search became the basis for his talk at this year’s [email protected] conference.

After some reverse engineering, some guesswork, some decryption, and some poking around, he found them — and wrote a piece of code that helped him detect if an app was trying to access them. Basically, he found, if an app has a certain line of code, then it uses the tracking SDK.

Raiu found more than 240 distinct apps with the SDK embedded. In total, those apps have been installed more than 500 million times. If we go with a rather rough assumption that the average user installed such an app only once, that would mean about 1 in 16 people worldwide has such a tracking app installed on their device. That’s … a lot. Your chance of being one of them is, well, 1/16.

What’s more, X-Mode is just one of dozens of companies in this industry.

In addition to that, any app can contain more than just one SDK. For example, while Raiu was looking at an app that included the X-Mode SDK in question, he discovered five other components from other companies that were also collecting location data. Obviously, the developer was trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of the app — and it wasn’t even a free app. Paying for an application doesn’t mean, unfortunately, that its creators are not trying to get more money out of the deal.

What can you do to avoid the tracking?

The problem with these tracking SDKs is that when you download an app, you just don’t know whether it contains such location tracking components. The app may have a legitimate reason to ask for your location — many apps rely on location to function properly. But such an app might also sell your location data — it’s hard to tell.

To help tech-savvy users minimize their odds of being tracked, Raiu has created a list of the C&C servers those tracking SDKs use. You’ll find it on his personal GitHub page. A RaspberryPi computer with Pi-hole and WireGuard software installed can help sniff the traffic in your home network and expose the apps that try to contact such servers.

The above probably goes a bit beyond most peoples’ tech skills, but you can at least lower your chances of being tracked by such apps and services by limiting apps’ permissions.

• Check which apps have permission to use your location. You can find information about how to do that on Android 8 here; later versions do not differ significantly. And here’s how to stop location tracking on iOS. If you don’t think that an app really needs such a permission, don’t hesitate to revoke it.
• Give apps permission to use your location only while you’re using them. Most apps don’t need to know your location when they are running in the background, making this setting ideal for many of them.
• Delete apps you don’t use anymore. If you haven’t opened an app in, say, a month or more, it’s probably safe to assume you don’t need it at all; and if you need it in the future, you can always reinstall it.
• Keep in mind that location-tracking components are certainly not the worst things that can be found in an app, even legitimate apps distributed through official stores. Some apps may be outright malicious, and some may become bad after getting sold or just being updated. That is why we recommend using a robust security solution such as Kaspersky Internet Security for Android, which protects you against all kinds of mobile threats.

The privacy issues associated with our location when we’re carrying an iPhone or iPad have gotten a lot of attention. But a Mac can reveal to apps where we’re at, as well. No Mac includes a GPS or cellular modem, but between Wi-Fi positioning and cues and information retrieved by associated and nearby cellular devices of your own and those of other people, a Mac can often approximate its position fairly well.

Open the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences, click the Privacy button, and select Location Services from the list at left, and you can see all the apps to which you’ve given permission, and for which you’ve revoked access.

The list of location-enabled apps lets you review and revoke apps you let see your position.

To remove permission to retrieve your location: uncheck the box to the left of the app or service.

You can’t delete items from this list, only disable their access. However, if the app is no longer one you’re using, you can Control-click the an item and choose Reveal in Finder, then delete the app from your Mac.

Uncheck Enable Location Services to remove all permissions. This does disable Find Me, which can be a useful tool to find a lost or stolen Mac.

While iOS and iPadOS provide more indicators about when an app has recently retrieved location information, macOS only shows a gray arrow, which indicates if the app queried for position within the last 24 hours.

Timely’s iOS GPS tracker lets you track exactly where you’ve been and for how long. It’s super helpful when you have loads of client meetings, need to track time spent traveling for work, or just want to see how long you spend in the office each day.

Enable iOS GPS tracking

To start tracking your location, simply head to Settings at the right side of your bottom menu bar inside the iOS app.

Click “Connect apps”

‘Locate’. the Location Tracker option 😉

Switch on ”Allow Location Tracking’

Note: If you are unable to switch on the Location Tracking, make sure your location is set to ‘Always’, ‘Motion & Fitness’ is switched on, and the Background App Refresh is activated in the iOS settings for for the Timely app.

If you are unable to switch on the Background App Refresh from your App settings for Timely, you will need to make sure the Background app refresh is activated in your phone’s General settings. Head to iOS Settings > General > Background App Refresh > Background App Refresh and activate with the Wi-Fi and Mobile Data option.

Once you’ve enabled your GPS location tracker, your activity will appear in your Memory Timeline. Location tracking records the direction you spend in each location, provided that you stay there for more than five minutes.

Create quick time entries

You can push tracked locations directly from your timeline to logged entries. Let’s say were in a coffee shop for 40 minutes for a meeting and want to log that time. Just select the tracked location for that period and tap “Create Entry”.

Select your project, add notes and tags then click ‘create’. Just like that, your location based entry is saved!

Other Related Questions

Why is my location only tracking addresses and not location names?
Timely’s GPS tracking registers your location based on your actual GPS coordinate, assigning that address to your location.

Can I name the address as a location?
Not at this time, but it’s something we are looking into. If you’d like this feature, submit a feature request to let us know!

With their knowledge and permission, of course

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What to Know

• The easiest way to track someone with the iPhone is to use the Find My app that’s pre-installed on most recent iPhones.
• To find and be found using the Find My, you’ll need to enable Share My Location with your friends.
• Once enabled, you can track your friends and family (who consent) on a map, and they can track you.

The article provides instructions for how to see someone on your iPhone after you’ve gained their permission so that you can keep track of someone or know when you and your friends are nearby the same locations.

How Can I Check Someone’s Location on iPhone?

The easiest way to check someone’s location on iPhone is to use the Find My app. However, in order to use this app, you first need to enable Start Sharing Location, and your friends need to consent to be found using the app. Here’s how to go about doing so.

While there are some third-party apps to track people’s location without their knowledge, Lifewire does not recommend using them, even for family members and children. If you plan to track someone’s location, they should know that you plan to, and if they are adults, you should have their permission to before you begin tracking them.

Open Find My on your iPhone and tap the People tab.

If you’ve never used Find My for people before, you’ll be prompted to Start Sharing Location. Tap that option.

Select someone from your contact list to share your location with and then tap Send.

Once the invitation has been sent, then you can tap that person’s name to see details about them. If you’re not already following them scroll down and tap Ask to Follow Location. An invitation will be sent, and once the contact accepts it, you will be able to see their location (as long as they have locations turned on).

You must share your location with the person you want to follow before you can send them a request to follow them.

How Can You See Someone’s Location in the Find My App?

Once you’ve got Find My for people set up on your iPhone, it’s easy to see someone’s location. Just open the Find My app, go to the People tab, and tap the name of the person you want to see. If that person has location services turned on, their location should show on a map, and from there, you can tap Directions to get directions to their exact location.

You can also tap Notifications to set up a notification for the next time that person Arrives, Leaves, or Is Not At a specific location (this is sometimes referred to as a geofence). You can set the frequency of those notifications, too.

To find your location history, on an iPhone, open Settings and tap Privacy > Location Services > System Services. Scroll down and tap Significant Locations, then view your location history.

There are several reasons why you may not be able to view a friend’s location. First, if that friend hasn’t agreed to share their location with you, you won’t be able to see their location via Find My iPhone. If they are sharing their location with you, it’s possible their phone is turned off, isn’t connected to cellular or Wi-Fi, or their device has the wrong date. The friend may be in a location without service. They also may have enabled Hide My Location in Find My iPhone. There may be a problem with your phone, as well. Check your GPS, and try exiting out of the Find My app, then launching it again.

The Find My app helps you quickly locate a lost Apple device or keep tabs on friends and family, but there are times when you need to disable it, revoke access for specific devices, or stop sharing your location.

With Apple’s Find My app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, you can track the location of a lost phone, find missing luggage with an AirTag, or keep tabs on close friends and family members (with permission). We recommend you keep it on for those reasons, but there are times when you’ll need to shut it off.

Perhaps you’re selling your device and need to disconnect it from your Apple ID before wiping it. Maybe you just want to purge your device of the services (and people) who can track your location. Whatever the reason, you can shut down the Find My app in a few easy steps.

Turn Off Find My Services

If you need to quickly shut everything down, including location and device tracking, head to Settings > [your name] > Find My > Find My iPhone. Tap the switch next to Find My iPhone, then enter your Apple ID password to disable the service. For iPad users, the instructions are the same but the options will say Find My iPad instead.

You should notice two other options on this screen. Find My network, which will allow your device to be tracked even when it’s offline. Send Last Location will automatically send your location when the battery is low. If you don’t want to turn everything off, you can instead turn one or both of these options off to minimize when your location is tracked.

Remove Individual Devices

There are several ways to remove a specific device from the Find My app. On mobile, open Settings and tap your name. Scroll down to view the different devices, select the one you wish to remove, then select Remove from Account to disconnect it from your Apple ID. You can also remove devices from the Find My app under the Devices tab. Tap a device and select Remove This Device from the pop-up menu to disconnect it from your account.

Another way to do this is from the iCloud website, where you select Find iPhone, click your name in the right-hand corner and choose Account Settings. Select the device from the My Devices section and click Remove.

Mac users who have Find My set up can go to System Preferences > Apple ID and click Options next to Find My Mac. You can then turn off Find My Mac and Find My network.

Last updated: 24th Nov 2021 – Estimated read time: 4 minutes

Can apps track your location?

Many apps will automatically track your location unless you’ve explicitly told them not to (or turned off the permissions in your settings).

Apps will track you to gather location data and monitor what you like to do. According to The New York Times, at least 75 companies know people’s exact location from their app usage.

That’s a lot of prying eyes!

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to check if your apps are storing your data, and how you can prevent this invasion of privacy.

How can I tell if an app is using my location?

Firstly, you should always read the small print in the policies of apps before downloading them. This information will usually tell you how they store location data.

Apps don’t make it obvious that they’re tracking your location, so you’ll have to go into your settings to find out which ones are.

On iPhones

Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services

If your location services are on, apps that have permission will be able to track you.

Alternatively, you can also go to:

Settings > Privacy > Tracking

This will show you a list of the apps that function with tracking technology. To reject permission, make sure the toggles are switched to grey for off.

On Android phones

On Android, you should be aware that apps can keep storing your location data even when you’re not using the app!

To manually stop specific apps from monitoring you, go to:

Settings > Apps > App permissions > Location

Or, alternatively, you can:

Hold down an app’s icon on your home screen > App info > All permissions > Location

Through either one of these methods, you should be able to see a list of apps that are tracking you, and what permissions they each have.

What happens if I stop an app from using my location?

When you turn off location services on your phone and apps, your smartphone’s location will no longer be trackable.

This means navigation apps won’t be able to pinpoint your location for journeys, and other apps won’t be able to store your location data as you move around.

Unless it’s an app that relies on accessing your location to function, like Maps, turning off location services will not inhibit the use of an application.

Is my location history stored?

Unfortunately, apps do track more than we think. Google keeps a history of your locations, and can usually keep tracking you even with your location services turned off.

On iPhones

You can access your location history on an iPhone by going to:

Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations

On Androids

Or on Android by going to:

Google Maps > Tap Menu (three horizontal lines) > Tap timeline > Tap calendar icon > Tap a date to see location history

You can also find your location history on your Google Account.

Can I remove my location information from databases?

You can delete your location history from your phone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be deleted everywhere else.

The problem is that your location history could be saved on numerous databases (due to companies selling your personal data). So even if the app developers remove it from their database, the information might be somewhere else on a different server.

You can at least remove your location information off of your device, so that if it’s ever lost or stolen, people won’t be able to track where you’ve been.

On iPhones

Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations

From here, you can either delete a single location by tapping it, pressing edit, and then tapping to delete. Or, if you want to delete all of your saved locations, simply press Tap Clear History.

On Android phones

Google Maps > Your Timeline > More > Settings and privacy > Location Settings > Delete all Location History

How to stop location tracking on an iPhone

Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Switch toggle to off [grey]

It’s also helpful to permanently delete any apps you no longer use, so your smartphone isn’t unknowingly collecting data behind your back.

How to stop location tracking on Android

Settings > Location > Use location > Switch toggle to off

Like iPhone users, people on Android should delete any apps they no longer use or need, so that location data isn’t being stored unknowingly.

Discover more

You may also be interested in reading some of our other blogs:

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With the iOS 15 update, Apple has rolled a new feature called App Privacy Report which will help the users to track the apps that secretly access your data on your iPhone which includes your device camera, microphone, contacts and location.

Good news iPhone users! If you have an iPhone running on iOS 15 and above, then you can check the apps that’s tracking you. This new feature introduced by Apple will keep an eagle eye on apps accessing your data on your iPhone which includes your device camera, microphone, contacts and location.

The iOS 15 update though was announced by Apple in June during the WWDC 2021 event and rolled in September, but it didn’t include the feature to check the privacy report. The feature was finally rolled on December 13 which will allow the users to monitor which apps constantly access their information and can deny permission in case of need.

So if you have an iPhone that has been upgraded to iOS 15.2, then you will be able to check and stop apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc that might be tracking your location or secretly checking on your camera roll. The feature by default is disabled and users need to enable it to generate the privacy report.

How to enable Privacy report on iOS 15.2

1. Go to Settings and tap on the Privacy button.
2. Now scroll down to App Privacy Report.
3. Now enable the feature by tapping on Turn On App Privacy Report.

You can check back in a few minutes to see which apps have been included in the report.

The App Privacy Report feature on iPhone allows the users to check permission usage, network activity, website network activity and the domain details that have been frequently contacted on your device. Post activating this feature you can follow the below steps to understand how it works.

When you turn off location services on your iPhone, you’re disabling them across your device. This can be great to stop location tracking and preserve battery life. But it will cause some difficulties with apps like Find My or Maps.

You also have less extreme and more tailored options, such as turning off location services only for certain apps, or making sure specific people can’t track your location.

Here’s how to adjust all the location tracking services on your iPhone.

How to turn off location services on an iPhone

To completely disable location services on your iPhone:

Open Settings and click on “Privacy.”

Navigate to the privacy tab. Jamie Friedlander/Business Insider
You’ll see a box at the top that says “Location Services.” If they’re turned on, it will say “On.”

Find “Location Services” at the top of the page. Jamie Friedlander/Business Insider
Click on “Location Services.” You’ll be taken to a new screen.

Flip the Location Services switch to gray in order to turn it off. Jamie Friedlander/Business Insider
To turn off location services, tap the green slider. You’ll be prompted with a pop-up message. Click “Turn Off.”

Click “Turn Off.” Jamie Friedlander/Business Insider

If you need to turn location services back on again, follow these same instructions to toggle the green slider to “On.”

How to turn off location services for specific iPhone apps

To turn off location services only for selected apps on your iPhone:

1. Launch your iPhone’s Settings app and tap “Privacy.”
2. Select “Location Services.” Scroll through the list of apps and click on the ones you want to change location services settings for.

Scroll through your list of Location Services-eligible apps to find the one you need. Abbey White/Insider
Your options will vary depending on your iOS version and the app you’ve selected, but you’ll generally see two or more of the following: “Never,” “Always,” “Ask Next Time, and “While Using the App.” Select the one you want to use, then close out of your Settings app.

Here’s what to know about those location sharing options:

• Always: This will grant the app permission to access your location all the time, regardless of whether you’re using the app.
• Never: This option disables location services completely while using the app, and can mean some features are unavailable to you until you update your app’s settings.
• Ask Next Time: If you select this option, it tells the app to prompt you each time you open the app so you can grant access on a case-by-case basis.
• While Using the App: This automatically enables location services when you open the app and turns them off once you exit out of it.

How to turn off location for system services on iPhone

System services work in the background on your iPhone to support apps and basic functions, like location-based alerts or your time zone.

To turn off location tracking for any of these system services on your iPhone:

1. Open your Settings app.
2. Tap “Privacy.”
3. Select “Location Services.”
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the menu list and choose “System Services.”

Scroll to the end of your Location Services menu to find and tap System Services. Abbey White/Insider
Toggle which iPhone-based system services and product improvement reporting you want to turn off Location Services for.

Scroll until you find the system services you want to disable location services for. Abbey White/Insider
If you tap “Significant Locations,” you can disable the encrypted feature that tracks your locations and helps your iPhone provide location-related info for apps like Maps, Calendar, Photos, and more.

How to turn off location services in the Find My app

iPhone’s Find My app helps you keep track of your devices — from your phone to your Mac — using Apple’s location services. It can also share your location with friends and let them share theirs with you.

To turn off all location services on the Find My app on your iPhone:

1. Open Settings and tap your name at the top of the menu.
2. Select “Find My” from the list of apps.

Select the Find My app after tapping your name in the Settings menu. Abbey White/Insider
Tap the toggle next to “Share my location” to disable all location sharing through the app.

To turn off all location services for individual people in the Find My app on your iPhone:

1. Open the Find My app on your iPhone.
2. Go to the “People” tab.”

Tap the People tab to access your list of approved shared people. Abbey White/Insider