Android smartphone users have grown a lot in the last decade and have become more aware of privacy. It is really easy to identify and locate people through anonymous data that many applications constantly fetch in the background. Most of such applications sell the information to advertising companies to target ads and other marketing strategies to the consumer. Google has been trying hard to stop these practices and put a security shield over its user’s privacy. There are features on your smartphone available, which many people don’t know of. Here are the steps to follow to stop apps to fetch your location anonymously.
Turn Off Location
This is the best solution to protect your privacy at the core level. The companies usually give the option to turn on/off your GPS location. The setting can either be accessed from the drop-down settings menu of the Android phone. Just search the options for location or GPS in the drop-down menu and tap it to turn it off. The other method is by simply heading to the settings of the smartphone and searching for either GPS or Location settings. After finding the correct option just toggle off the setting and you are good to go. Now no application can access your location as your sensor is off.
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Allow for specific applications
With the recent update by Google, the application needs to ask you first before fetching your location all the time. We can choose from options like Allow, Allow only while using the app or Deny. Even if by mistake, you have tapped allow in a hurry it’s easy to fix it and change the setting accordingly.
Step 1 – Head to settings on your Android smartphone.
Step 2 – Search for GPS or location.
Step 3 – Under app permission, there will be all the applications using the location of your phone.
Step 4 – Just tap for the application you feel is suspicious or want to check the permission settings of.
Step 5 – Set the application privacy/location settings accordingly.
But there are some applications that need to use your location to function. A prime example of such an application is Google Maps. So before not allowing your location for the application do know its proper functionality.
These steps will surely come in handy to protect your location from getting leaked and won’t let other applications anonymously fetch your location data. We also advise to not download applications from sources other than Google Play Store. Also one can use VPN to mask their IP address and location.
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