Why is it advisable to deactivate geolocation on your smartphone?

The navigation data of the holder of a smartphone can be transmitted to other applications if the geolocation is activated, indicates an IT specialist. Tracking journeys allows them to refine the advertisements sent to the user.

To limit the collection of personal data from your smartphone, it is advisable to deactivate geolocation or to restrict access of certain applications to this service, says a specialist on the Russian platform, Citizen Digital.

“Applications exchange information about a user’s advertising preferences designed from information from various sources, including geolocation,” explains Vladimir Gritsenko.

For example, if user-activated geolocation on his Instagram, the social network can specify his geolocation and transmit it to partner applications, he explains.

It’s possible to choose for which applications the service will be disabled to prevent the collection and transfer of their travel data.

Facebook takes advantage

In addition, the complete deactivation of the geolocation makes it possible to reduce the energy consumption of a smartphone and thus to save the battery. However, geolocation remains a useful feature because users of messaging services like WhatsApp take advantage of this to share their locations with friends in real-time and thus find each other more quickly, underlines the specialist.

“However, it should be remembered that this service always works in the background once activated, and Facebook receives data on your geolocation,” he warns.

In August 2019, Google admitted that it recorded the travel history of users without their authorization. The data was collected even if the tracking of the geolocation had been disabled.