ORLANDO, Fla. – According to Pew Research, 77 percent of Americans own a smartphone. Both iPhones and Androids come with a preinstalled app that tracks your location.
For iPhones, it is Find My Friends and for Android users, it is Google Maps but there is more. Every phone, app and website that you use comes with a privacy policy. There is a link or tab to it in the corner of your device, but more than 90 percent of phone users do not read the contents.
In the park, at home, at the store, your phone tracks your every movement and everything you do on it, and you might not even know it. How many privacy policies have you read?
For Android owners, all your phone data is sent to Google including how long your call was and where you were at the time. It’s connected to your Gmail account. And for iPhone users, the same information is tracked, but it stays on your phone.
According to the Marketwatch website, there are more than 1,000 apps that track your location alone. But they track other data once they are opened. For example, in the privacy policy of Air BNB, they explain what is collected just by opening the app. So how do you stop sending this information?
Go to the settings app on your phone to location service and turn off tracking. You can also go to individual apps in the settings app to disable location services and other tracking information.
To stop Google from tracking you, go to your account, pick personal info and privacy, and click go to my activity to erase some of the data. Protecting your information.
For iPhone users who use face ID, it is difficult for someone to copy your face as the data is not sent back to apple. But if an app wants to stick an AR filter on your face, they can by just sending Apple a privacy policy.
Contributor(s) to this news report include: Keon Broadnax, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer and Editor.