submitted 1 day ago by pineapple@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I can't believe I've never thought about this and that no one is really talking about it. GPS is a system that everyone uses everyday on there phone and is constantly tracking your location.

Many people here (including myself) use airplane mode to block mobile data signals so that mobile data companies cannot track your location and sell it to data brokers. But airplane mode doesn't block GPS (I just tested this now on my phone, maybe your phone works differently). Is GPS somehow designed in a way so that it's private?

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[-] chillpanzee@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

GPS is not bidirectional communication, so the systems themselves (ie GNSS) aren’t tracking you just because you receive the signal. But…

In addition to GPS, airplane mode also doesn’t shut off the Wifi or bluetooth radios; it’s usually just the cell radio.
Your phone OS has several ways of tracking and recording your location, activities, and movements, and it generally does this at all times. For example, Find My even works when the battery on an iPhone is “dead.”
Phones may fallback to BTLE mesh networks (like AirTags), or do background WIFI location scanning to track and record your phone’s location. Turning these off does prevent you and 3rd party apps from using the features, just not the OS.

[-] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

What about GPS devices that are not phones

[-] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago

These are fine. If you got an older garmin with no network connectivity, it's completely passive and only receiving.

[-] pineapple@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

I do prefere airplane mode allowing wifi for obvious reasons. I have a samsung and it really does suck how far baked in the spyware is. Is it possible/are there any guides that show me how to make samsung or any other phone not be able to use its spyware?

Is the only way to fix this using a custom rom or postmarketos?

[-] chillpanzee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

For sure, it's a valid use case... connecting to wifi on an airplane.

I can't help on Samsung. I haven't had one in ages.

this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026

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Privacy

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