In this guide, we look at how to block my phone from being tracked. Everyone pretty much carries around a smartphone with them everywhere in modern times. Smartphones are very convenient overall and they make doing many things much easier than they would otherwise be.
However, it’s also possible to track smartphones and many of the activities that you’re doing are being constantly monitored by companies. Many people are uncomfortable about this tracking and they want to know how to make it stop once they find out about it.
If you are worried about being tracked, or if you don’t like having so much data gathered about your activities, then you might be able to make a few important changes. Keep reading to learn a bit about how to block your phone from being tracked.
This information should help you to move forward with confidence without having to worry quite so much about using your smartphone. There are three basic things that you can do to make it much less likely that your phone will be tracked.
How To Block My Phone From Being Tracked
Take the Time to Turn Off Location Services
The first thing that you will want to do is take the time to turn off location services. You can go into the settings of your phone and tell it to not share GPS location data with various apps. This will give you much greater privacy in comparison to just letting the apps gather location information around the clock. It’s actually simpler to turn off location services on Apple products than it is to do that on Android.
On an iPhone, all you need to do is go to Settings and then tap Privacy before going to Location Services. There are more settings in the Android menus that appear to be related to location, but what you need to do is go to your phone’s Settings app. Once there, you have to tap Security & Location. Finally, you need to tap Location and then turn Use Location off.
This will make your Android phone a little less capable when it comes to certain things. For instance, you won’t be able to use location-based data to improve the information that you’re getting during Google searches. For most people, this is going to be a small price to pay for being able to enjoy more privacy. Consider your options and then move forward from there.
Use Private Browsers and VPNs
You can also avoid getting tracked and having information gathered by browsing the web wisely. It’s going to be smart to use private browsers in Firefox instead of browsing the open web. Your information isn’t tracked to the same degree when you’re using private browsing and it can prevent many sites from collecting or saving data on what you’re doing. Of course, this isn’t a completely anonymous way to use the internet, and this is why you should also consider signing up for a VPN.
If you make use of VPN services, then you can truly browse the web anonymously and you will be able to feel less anxious about tracking. Various VPN services are available and you can actually make it appear like you’re in a completely different location than you actually are. A VPN will also simply offer you much improved security and will make it less likely that you will encounter issues while using the internet. You can find several VPN options that are very affordable and some VPN options are even free, although the functionality is much more limited.
Limit Ad Tracking Functionality
Trying to limit ad tracking functionality is also going to be a positive step to take. To do this on Android, you simply want to go to Settings and then head to Google, Ads, and then finally toggle the “opt-out of ads personalization” option. For Apple products, you go to Settings and then head to Privacy, Location Services, scroll down to System Services, and then disable location-based iAds. This should keep you from having your location data tracked for the purpose of getting accurate advertisements based on your location data.
Delete Your Browser History
Your browser history should also be deleted because your browser collects a lot of information about you. Go into whatever web browser you’re using on your phone and take the time to completely delete the history. You will also want to turn off the location information that it has been storing. Google, in particular, keeps a lot of location data and you’ll find that Google will have a very accurate list of information based on all of the places where you have signed in.
You can delete this information so that you can move forward without being tracked further. Once you have done this, it’ll be possible to browse the web using a VPN without having to worry about your location data being tracked further. No matter what web browser you have been using, it’s going to be worthwhile to do this. It won’t take long to delete your browser history and you’ll be able to feel much less concerned about your data being tracked and stored once it is done.
Place Your Phone in a Faraday Bag
Finally, it might be a good idea to simply place your phone in a Faraday bag when you aren’t using it. This simple action will make it so that your phone cannot be tracked because it won’t be able to send data about its location anywhere. These special bags are made with conducting materials that can block out all external electrical fields. The electrical signals cannot penetrate the bag due to the nature of how it’s constructed.
You can keep your phone from getting hacked or being tracked by placing it in a Faraday bag. This is going to be the most foolproof way to keep your phone data from being obtained by others. Of course, the practicality of this method is going to be somewhat up in the air. It seems fine to place your phone in the bag while you aren’t using it, but most people use their smartphones constantly.
If you’re like most Americans, then you probably use your phone multiple times each hour. It might feel a bit annoying to have to get up and take the phone out of the bag every single time you want to check your text messages. You could use a faraday bag when you’re sleeping at night, but most individuals are going to want to charge their phones during these hours. A Faraday bag is a good solution for not allowing your phone to be tracked, but it does sort of prevent the regular use of a phone and isn’t something that most people are going to want to bother with.
It’s Hard to Avoid Being Tracked Completely
It’s honestly very hard to use a smartphone and avoid being tracked completely. The information above will prove useful and should help you to maintain as much privacy as possible. Even so, it’s not going to be easy to keep companies from gathering some data on you. Just remember that you do give up some privacy by using a smartphone and that the only way to really avoid being tracked completely is to simply not have a smartphone.
Since smartphones are so practical and the world is increasingly more reliant on technology, abstaining might not feel like a logical option. This is why the above data will be so useful to you. Use the information well and do what you can to protect your privacy.
