The location of your phone can still potentially be tracked, even if your location function is turned off.
The location service on a phone is arguably the most accurate way to track the location of a smart phone, but even with the location service turned off, there are other ways for someone to track your phone.
Switching off the location, only turns off the GPS radio feature of the phone.
Ways to track a phone
There are different ways to determine the location of a smart phone. These are the ways to track a phone and how these phone location services work.
Location Service (GPS and AGPS)
The location service on a phone that is most used, is the built-in location service. We use this regularly in applications like navigators to help us reach our destinations. We also use this to share our location to others.
This service use GPS technology, which is Global Positioning System and AGPS, which is an Assisted Global Positioning System.
GPS
GPS use satellites to determine the location of smart phones and other GPS devices. The GPS satellites are in orbit around the earth and are constantly transmitting back to earth.
A radio receiver in your phone receives these signals. To determine the phone’s location, the phone needs to be able to “see” at least four satellites. If more than four satellites are in view, it will use the four strongest signals.
The chip in the phone’s receiver then uses the data from the received signals to calculate its distance from each satellite. This is then used to determine the phone’s longitude, latitude, and altitude.
Although four satellites are used, this method of determining a location by calculating the distance from three or more objects with known locations are referred to as triangulation.
When a phone use GPS location, it only needs to receive data, as there is no need to transmit data back to the satellites. Because this feature is only a radio receiver and not a transmitter, this will generally not be switched off automatically when you turn on flight mode on your device. Flight mode will however prevent this information from being transmitted while in flight mode.
AGPS
AGPS is Assisted GPS. With Assisted GPS, cellular data is used to assist the GPS in finding the phone’s location.
Because GPS rely on information received from satellites, this will bring about a time delay. This time delay can be anything from 30 seconds to several minutes. This delay is referred to as Time to First Fix (TTFF)
As mentioned previously, the GPS also needs to be able to “see” at least four satellites so signals from satellites could, and probably would, drop out periodically.
With Assisted GPS your smart phone acquires and stores information from the cellular network about the location of satellites. This saves time, as the information does not need to be downloaded by satellite.
Assisted GPS also use the location of nearby cell phone towers and of known Wi-Fi networks to find your phone’s location.
Because buildings and other obstructions often restrict satellite signals, Assisted GPS comes in especially handy when you are between tall buildings, or where satellite signals find it difficult to reach. It is however less accurate than when signal from four satellites can be received.
Cell Tower Triangulation
Cell tower triangulation work by using three or more cell towers to determine the location of the phone. This is done by measuring the time delay of a signal between the phone and each of the towers. This delay is then used to calculate distance. When the distance between the known locations of the towers and the phone are determined, triangulation is then used to find the location of the phone.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Even Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can be used to track the location of a phone. When your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are enabled on your phone, it is constantly checking for networks and devices within range.
Because Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth have a limited range, if you’re your phone is within range of a Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device with a known location, your phone’s location is then in determined as being in the same location.
IP Address
An IP Address is an address that is assigned to any device that connects to the internet. Without an IP address, the device will not be able to access the internet.
This IP address is transmitted by your phone, while connected to the internet and visible to devices and websites etc. that you connect to.
The IP address for each device is assigned by its internet service provider and includes location information. If the IP Address of a device is known, the location of the device can also be found.
This does not disclose the exact location however, but only the approximate location.
You can read more about this in our article: What does it mean when your IP Address is exposed
EXIF Metadata
Although this does not exactly fall under the same category as the other methods, it is worth the mention.
Most modern cell phones, and other mobile devices embed the GPS coordinates (Longitude and latitude) of the location of where a photo was taken. This is usually done by default in the EXIF metadata of the photo. This information can be accessed, by simply looking at the properties of the photo.
If you are concerned about, for example, somebody finding out where you live, but you are sending or posting photos online that were taken at home, the location of your home could be found by looking at the photo’s metadata.
Unless you have a reason to have location information imbedded in your photos, it may be best to disable this feature on your phone.
Ways for people to track someone’s phone
Location share
Your location can be shared through various apps by you doing so voluntarily. Location sharing apps typically use GPS location data, so turning your location off should prevent these apps from finding your location.
On some apps, your location can only be shared on a once off basis
On other apps like Apple’s Find My Friends, or the Google app called Trusted Contacts, you can grant people access to your devices location information whenever they want to check where you are.
Granting people who you trust access to your location information has many potential benefits. The downside of this is that the dynamics of relationships may change over time. Remember to revoke access if your relationship with them changes. E.g., You probably do not want an Ex, to be able to track your location, after you have split up.
Tracking Apps
There are many Tracking Apps available, where a person can be tracked without them knowing. These apps are readily available, even from legitimate App Stores.
One such app is Spyine. For it to work on an Android device, the person will have to get hold of your device to install and hide the app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, Spyine software does not need to be installed on the device as it can extract the iCloud backup. The person wanting to track your location would need to know the iCloud credentials of your account. Once active, Spyine can get Wi-Fi or GPS data in real time for a device.
Third-Party Apps
Many of the everyday apps that we install on our phones have access to our phone’s location. We grant this access when we install theses Apps.
If you are installing an App, be sure to do some research first, before granting the App access to your location information.
Even Apps like Google, Facebook and Twitter keeps location history. These Apps mainly use our location for purposes of targeted advertising. You can read more about this in our article: My privacy on the internet.
IP Address
As mentioned previously in this article, your approximate location is linked to your phone’s IP address. This IP Address is transmitted every time when you go online. If this is a concern, you may want to consider connecting through VPN to hide your location.
Cell Phone and Internet Service Providers
Your service provider can pinpoint your location by triangulating your location in relation to cell towers in range.
This method is generally only used in extreme circumstances in case of an emergency, or if a court order is obtained, compelling them to do so.
Malware
Malware is malicious software that can infect a device. Often, we simply refer to these as computer viruses, although a computer virus is a type of malware.
When a phone is infected by Malware, it can be used to gain access to a device without the user’s knowledge or permission.
You can read more about this in our article: Different Types of Online Security Threats.