How to protect your device from position trackers

Most of us want to protect our phones from being tracked by phone locators to protect our data but in today’s digital world it has become a bit difficult. The introduction of a wide range of digital phone trackers has made it easier to track mobile location even without knowing that you are being tracked.

However, by changing a few settings discussed here under you can stop tracking of your Smartphone easily.

Limit the tracking of ads

You can reduce or minimize the tracking of ads by using a built-in option in Android and iOS devices. Though this change in setting will not completely stop the visibility of ads or tracking of your activities on your mobile phone still it can disconnect the advertising profiles targeted to your device as well as reset its advertising ID.

On iOS devices, you can do it just by switching on the button ;Limit Ad Tracking’ after going to  Settings’ to;Privacy’ to;Advertising’ to;Limit Ad Tracking’. It will not only reset your advertising ID but also de-link the data related to your previous ID.

For Android phones, you will have to switch on  Opt out of Ads Personalization’ after reaching there by going to Settings to Ads to the button  Opt out of Ads Personalization.’ It will change your advertising ID.

Change the location settings of your phone

You might not know that inside the privacy settings of Android and Apple phones there are a few features that record the routine activities on your phone. You can stop tracking your phone just by turning these settings off.

There is a setting  Frequent Locations’ which allows the phone tracker to know your phone location, your frequency to go there as well as the duration to stay there. You can turn off this setting if you find it in your phone.

You can turn off this setting in your Apple phone by clicking on  Settings’ and going to  Privacy’ and selecting  Location Services’ and choosing  Significant Locations’ after scrolling down to  system services’. Here you can turn it off by de-selecting it after seeing your logged record. You can click on  Clear History’ to clear your tracking history.

On your Android device, you can turn off this setting by going to  Settings’ and tapping on  Location’ as well as scrolling down to Location Settings’ and tapping on it. Now tap on  Location Reporting’ and  Location History’ which you can switch by moving its slider and tap on  Delete Location History’ to delete the location cache of the device.

Use a private browser

You can use a private browser when you want to remain anonymous while browsing online instead of using any anti-tracking tool. For instance, the free Firefox Focus app from Mozilla can be one of the web browsers which can erase your browsing history as well as password after every use as well as block all the analytics, and advertising so that phone tracers cannot locate your mobile location. You can also use InPrivate and incognito modes of the Edge from Microsoft and Chrome of Google for this purpose. You can also use the Private mode of Dolphin Browser, a third-party app, if you do not want to use a browser on your mobile phone that is linked with big phone locators.

Stop tracking of your phone by some browsers

Recently it has been detected that the data of the location of your Android and iPhone is stored in various services of your browser even if you change their privacy settings. You can stop some browsers from tracking your mobile location by turning off the app and web activities of your mobile phone.

To turn off the web and app activities of your Smartphone you will have to sign up in your Account and select  Personal info & Privacy’ to click at  Your Personal Info’. Now select  Go To Activity Controls’ in the section  Manage your Activity’. Here you can turn off Locations History’ to stop saving the movements on your  Timeline’ but it will not stop saving your location data on  Web and App activity’. So you will have to pause Web and App activity’ to prevent being tracked by a phone locator as now your web and app activities will not be saved on your account.

Avoid malicious ads

Many companies use various types of algorithms to send you targeted ads and track your online behavior. You can avoid such behavioral ads in many ways like using the website Digital Advertising Alliance. This website provides you a page to see which of its partners has sent a customized ad on your device. You will get the list of its partners when scanning is completed by this website. It will also allow you to  Opt Out Cookies’ stored in your browser as well as the practices used by these companies. It will not allow the advertisers to serve targeted ads to your device.

Check your online accounts

Many tech giants like Facebook. track your likes and dislikes whenever you click on any of their services to products to watch. They use this information to post relevant and targeted ads on behalf of the advertisers. However, you can opt-out for tracing personalized ads by using tools offered by advertising companies. So to control the tracking of your activities on these platforms you should check your accounts with them to know the data stored on them.

Control your permissions on apps

While installing an app from Apple App Store or Google Play you should check the permissions required by them. A number of permission requests to access data on your device are offered by iOS and Android phones while installing an app. This information can be sent to the advertising companies to send targeted ads. You can control the misuse of this data by checking the permissions given to apps regularly.

Thus, by making a few changes in the settings you can easily protect your phone from phone trackers.