How to (really) stop Google from tracking your location
Spooked by the idea of Google tracking your every move? Thought you'd turned location tracking off? Turns out you hadn't
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Thought you'd turned off location tracking in your Google account? Think again. Turns out Google tracks your location even when you think it isn't.
Chances are if you've ever fiddled around in your Google privacy settings that you came across Location History. If you were spooked by the idea of Google tracking your every move, you might have turned it off. But, according to a report by the Associated Press, doing so only stops Google from adding your location to its Google Maps Timeline.
Google, it turns out, still collects location data for all Google users on Android and iOS unless you turn off another, more well-hidden setting. Here's how to actually lock down your Google account.
How to stop Google from tracking your location
To turn that setting off, head to the Activity controls dashboard and turn Web & App Activity off (Google will flash up a warning checking if you want to Pause Web & App Activity?, click Pause in the bottom right to confirm).
If you thought you'd already turned off Location History, this option should already be greyed out. If it isn't, toggle it off. Done? Not quite. Open up the Activity controls dashboard dashboard again and toggle Location History off. If you want to delete your location history on Google Timeline, just Manage Activity and then click on the bin icon (bottom right).
So why doesn't turning off Location History actually stop Google from tracking you? Simple: you didn't read the small print. As Google's settings make (sort of) clear, other apps and services automatically collect location data.
When you search for something with Google, for example, it will log precisely where you submitted that query. Google's cover, such as it is, was blown by Berkeley researcher K. Shankari when she noticed her Android phone kept prompting her to rate places she had visited, despite the fact that she had Location History turned off and didn't use Google Maps.
So how was Google still tracking her location? What Shankari found is that, even after she had seemingly explicitly told Google to stop tracking her location, it was doing so anyway. Google Location services uses multiple data sources to work out where you are – Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, mobile signal towers – and combines these in the background to build up a remarkably accurate picture of your movements without you ever expressly using services such as Google Maps.
Problem is, as Google is collecting this information in the background, it is anonymised. What isn't clear is how it transforms that anonymised location information, collected from a muddle of sensor data, into a push notification asking you for "some human help" to rate a train station or bar. If it's done locally on the device, then Google is very clever. If it's done off-device then how does Google know what device to send a push notification to? Many questions and, even with a very close read of Google's privacy policy, few answers.
The only solution at present? Turn off all location services. That's all well and good, but suddenly your Android phone will feel a whole lot less useful
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