• Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • DMCA
Monday, February 6, 2023
TheGreatNews.com
  • Home
  • MINDSET
  • WELL BEING
  • POSITIVE NEWS
  • WISDOM
  • PURPOSE
  • NEW TECHNOLOGIES
  • More Topics
    • ENTREPRENEUR
    • GREEN ENERGIES
    • SUCCESS
    • GOOD LIFE
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • MINDSET
  • WELL BEING
  • POSITIVE NEWS
  • WISDOM
  • PURPOSE
  • NEW TECHNOLOGIES
  • More Topics
    • ENTREPRENEUR
    • GREEN ENERGIES
    • SUCCESS
    • GOOD LIFE
No Result
View All Result
TheGreatNews.com
No Result
View All Result

Precise Location Is Giving Your Coordinates Away to Apps

in GOOD LIFE
Reading Time: 8 mins read
A A
Precise Location Is Giving Your Coordinates Away to Apps
Share Share Share Share Share

Image for article titled Precise Location Is Giving Your Coordinates Away to Apps

Photo: AngieYeoh (Shutterstock)

It’s no secret our apps use our locations: In fact, many need to in order to work properly. You wouldn’t get very far on your road trip if Google Maps couldn’t see your location. But smartphone makers don’t make it clear how location-sharing works—particularly that you can choose between sharing your general location, or your exact location. Unless you routinely tweak your privacy settings, it’s likely you’re broadcasting your exact location to any app that wants it.

There are two types of location datum you can share with an app: first, general location. This option gives the app a radius for your current location, but not a pin-point address. An app can know what neighborhood of a city you’re in, which can help give you relevant info for your area, but it won’t know you’re at your friend’s house at 123 Main St.

Related articles

Best Side Hustles in Real Estate to Earn Profits 

How to Get 100% of Your Student Loans Forgiven Through the Borrower Defense Program

Precise location, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like—it’s a setting that lets an app see your specific location, so it knows exactly where you are. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the app. Navigation apps come to mind, of course, since you’d prefer Maps to know you’re on the highway rather than the lake running alongside it.

Tagging with your current location is another common use case. In order for an app to automatically tag the restaurant, bar, park, or other specific location where you’re hanging out, it needs precise location rather than general location.

However, there are very few apps that need to know your precise location. GPS apps, yes; social media apps, probably not. It’s takes very little time to type in the location you want to tag versus having Instagram or Snapchat do it for you. For most apps’ purposes, having a vague understanding of where you are is adequate, and is one less piece of personal data you need to share with these companies.

G/O Media may get a commission

Mode Electric Toothbrush

Magnetically Docking

Mode Electric Toothbrush

Luxury brushing
Mode is the first magnetically charging toothbrush, and rotates to dock in any outlet. The brushing experience is as luxurious as it looks—with soft, tapered bristles and a two-minute timer to be confident you reached all the crevices of your molars.

Is precise location a dangerous feature?

Sometimes, precise location comes up in the news as something bad actors can use to target you. The claim is, because precise location shares your exact whereabouts, someone could use one of your social media posts to track you down.

Precise location, and location-tracking overall, have their faults, but they likely won’t allow a stranger on the internet to stalk you. While the feature does allows apps to see your specific location, it isn’t public information. Take Instagram, for example. It may have your precise location, but it doesn’t use it in your posts unless you want it to. If you don’t tag your precise location in the post, there’s no way for others to know where you are for sure. Instagram doesn’t save geotags on pictures you take in the app, either, but even if you upload a geotagged photo, there’s no way for followers to download the original photo and see that tag.

Geotagging, though, is something to consider. Your phone’s camera likely uses precise location by default to add the exact location of the photo to the file’s metadata. All that means is the location stays with the photo. If you directly send that photo to someone else, they’ll be able to see where you were when the photo was taken. If you’re interested in removing this data before sharing your photos with the world, you can check out our guide here.

The issue here is more related to privacy than security. By keeping precise location on, you’re sharing your exact location with any company that’s interested (and they’re all interested). While Apple and Google try to stop developers from selling your data to advertisers and other businesses, it still happens. The good news, if you can call it that, is all this data is anonymous and not directly tied to you. While it sounds like your apps are selling your location data to Big Brother to spy on your movements, in practice, companies use this data to better sell you stuff (we live in a boring dystopia, after all).

Still, it’s creepy! Turning precise location off doesn’t stop companies from receiving and selling your location data, but it does stop them from receiving and selling your exact location.

Managing precise location settings on your smartphone

The problem is, precise location is a sneaky feature, especially on iPhone. When you open an app that wants your location info for the first time, you see a pop-up asking for permission. This pop-up, complete with a mini-map preview of your location, is familiar to anyone on iOS, and typically asks whether you’d like to share your location with the app all the time, only when using the app, or never.

What isn’t overtly clear here, however, is the Precise toggle hidden in the mini map, which is set to “On” by default. If you want to disable it from the onset, you’ll need to toggle it off here before choosing the main location setting on the pop-up.

Image for article titled Precise Location Is Giving Your Coordinates Away to Apps

Screenshot: Jake Peterson

It’s not too late to fix the problem if you granted these permissions already, though. You can manage precise location settings on any iPhone running iOS 14 and newer, or an Android device running Android 12 and newer.

On iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services, then choose the app you want to manage. Now, make sure the toggle next to “Precise Location” is disabled, and you’re good to go. On Android, tap and hold on the app you want to manage, then go to App Info > Permissions > All Permissions. Under Location, make sure “Approximate location” is enabled, and “Precise location” is disabled.

Keeping precise location disabled for most apps is good privacy practice. While you’re at it, make sure to review all location settings for your iPhone, as well as your Google Account.

   

Credit: Source link

ShareTweetSendPinShare
Previous Post

‘Ee by gum’: the hunt for England’s old dialects – Positive News

Next Post

Clever Ways to Make a Long-Distance Relationship Suck Less

Related Posts

Best Side Hustles in Real Estate to Earn Profits 

Best Side Hustles in Real Estate to Earn Profits 

January 30, 2023

  If you want to make money in today's economy, you must do modern work, which is why everyone should have a side hustle. With the...

How to Get 100% of Your Student Loans Forgiven Through the Borrower Defense Program

How to Get 100% of Your Student Loans Forgiven Through the Borrower Defense Program

August 30, 2022

Photo: fizkes (Shutterstock)Last week, President Biden announced that millions of Americans may be eligible for up to $10,000 in federal student loan forgiveness—up to $20,000 for...

Salvaging crops and tackling a broken food system: meet the ‘gleaners’

Salvaging crops and tackling a broken food system: meet the ‘gleaners’

August 30, 2022

Across Britain, people are coming together to salvage unpicked produce. Addressing food poverty and farm waste, it’s a timely response to the cost of living crisis...

Two Things You Should Always Keep by Your Cutting Board While You Cook

Two Things You Should Always Keep by Your Cutting Board While You Cook

August 29, 2022

Cleaning as you go is widely regarded as one of the best ways to mitigate cooking mess. Loading dishes into the dishwasher as you’re done with...

How Long Does It Really Take to Form a Habit?

How Long Does It Really Take to Form a Habit?

August 29, 2022

Photo: Prostock-studio (Shutterstock)Forming a habit is a classic life hack: You want to change something about your life, so you insert a new action into your...

Next Post
Clever Ways to Make a Long-Distance Relationship Suck Less

Clever Ways to Make a Long-Distance Relationship Suck Less

NASA Detects Carbon Dioxide–the Building Block of Life–in Exoplanet’s Atmosphere for First Time

NASA Detects Carbon Dioxide–the Building Block of Life–in Exoplanet’s Atmosphere for First Time

How to Ensure Data Quality in the Cloud

How to Ensure Data Quality in the Cloud

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Weekly Updates

Best Side Hustles in Real Estate to Earn Profits 

Best Side Hustles in Real Estate to Earn Profits 

January 30, 2023
TheGreatNews.com

This is an online news portal that aims to provide the latest updates about mindset, well being, positive news, wisdom, purpose, new technologies, entrepreneur, green energy, success, good life and stuff like that around the world. Feel free to get in touch with us!

© 2021 - TheGreatNews.com - All rights reserved!

  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • DMCA
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • MINDSET
  • WELL BEING
  • POSITIVE NEWS
  • WISDOM
  • PURPOSE
  • NEW TECHNOLOGIES
  • More Topics
    • ENTREPRENEUR
    • GREEN ENERGIES
    • SUCCESS
    • GOOD LIFE

© 2021 - TheGreatNews.com - All rights reserved!