Most of us rely heavily on our smartphones to get around. Whether we are using an app to navigate a new city, checking the local weather forecast, or ordering food from a neighborhood restaurant, we rarely think twice when an app asks for permission to see where we are.

It seems completely harmless. After all, how can a weather app tell you if it’s going to rain if it doesn’t know what town you are standing in?

Who’s really tracking it all

But behind the scenes, there is a multi-billion-dollar industry built entirely around tracking everywhere you go. Companies are quietly turning your daily routine—where you shop, where you pray, where you go to the doctor, and who you visit—into a digital trail that they buy, sell, and trade.

Here is how this invisible tracking system works, and the simple ways you can take control of your privacy.

The invisible digital trail

Every few minutes, your smartphone quietly checks its location. It uses a mix of satellite signals and nearby Wi-Fi networks to pinpoint exactly where you are standing.

When you download a new app—like a game, a coupon app, or a social network—it often asks to use your location. What most people don’t realize is that many free apps make their money by bundling a hidden piece of tracking code inside the software.

This hidden code gathers up your location history and sends it off to massive companies known as “data brokers.”

These data brokers don’t just know where you are right now; they look at where you’ve been over weeks and months. By connecting the dots of your physical movements, they build a highly detailed profile of your private life:

• They know what grocery store you prefer and what time you shop.
• They can guess your medical history by how often you visit a specific clinic.
• They know your political leanings based on the rallies, meetings, or community events you attend.

Why do they care where you go?

Your location history is incredibly valuable to advertisers. If a company can see that you visit a golf course every Saturday morning, they will pay a premium to flood your phone with ads for golf clubs. If they see you frequently visit a pet supply store, you will suddenly see ads for dog food everywhere you look online.

While getting targeted ads might just seem annoying, there is a darker side to this tracking. This data can easily fall into the hands of scammers. If a bad actor buys a data list showing that you regularly visit a specific bank branch or medical center, they can craft highly convincing fake text messages or phone calls pretending to be from those exact places, tricking you into letting your guard down.

3 Simple ways to stop them tracking you

You don’t have to stop using your smartphone to protect your privacy. You just need to change a few settings to cut off the data supply line:

1. Go on an App Diet. Take a look at the apps on your phone right now. If there are games you haven’t played in months, old restaurant rewards apps you don’t use, or duplicate flashlight and weather apps, delete them. The fewer apps you have on your device, the fewer companies have a pipeline into your private life.
2. Change Your Location Settings to “While Using”. You don’t have to completely block your maps or weather apps from knowing where you are, but you should restrict when they can look.
   (Go to your phone’s Settings menu and look for Privacy & Security, then Location Services. Look at the list of apps. If an app is set to “Always,” change it to “While Using the App.”)
3. Turn Off Precise Location. Most apps don’t need to know the exact house or store layout you are standing in. Your weather app only needs to know your general city or zip code to tell you the forecast. In your phone’s location settings, you can toggle off “Precise Location” for apps that don’t absolutely need it. This gives the app a fuzzy, generalized area instead of your exact coordinates.

Your location is one of the most private pieces of information you own. By taking five minutes to audit your app permissions and turn off background tracking, you pull the plug on the corporations profiting off your daily routine and reclaim your digital privacy.

How iDefend can help

Any of the above sound too overwhelming or confusing for you? Would you rather not dig around inside app settings yourself? Let us do all that for you!

Our expert technicians will do all the heavy lifting for you so you can relax and enjoy your life. Give us a call or log into your account for help.

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