Does my Android phone track my movements?

I just got a text asking me to rate my visit to The O2 Arena but other than riding along the Thames Cycle Path which goes along the perimeter fence I have not visited or bought any tickets to any event there.
I can only presume that my phone which is on the O2 network sent the information. If this is the case how do I turn it off?

I imagine O2 have a mast in the arena and are able to determine signal strength and make some assumptions from that.

Yes your phone can track your movements if you have it turned out. You can manage all that stuff at https://history.google.com/history/&hl=en

It’s not your phone.

It’s the chip in the back of your neck….. 8)

It’s not your phone.

It’s the chip in the back of your neck…..
I had it removed at the vets.

Turn on Google+ (assistant? Or whatever they’re calling it now) and be amazed when it suddenly tells you to leave for work early as there’s heavy traffic. That properly scared me!

Handy though eh!

What OS are you on, Matt?

Not when I’m on the bike it isn’t! It takes 20 mins whatever the traffic 8)

🙂

You know the traffic flow information on google maps? It shows you what roads are running slow.. how do you think they know?

I’m on Android 4.4.4

You know the traffic flow information on google maps? It shows you what roads are running slow.. how do you think they know?

See all those thing pointing at you from the side of the road. The ones that aren’t speed cameras…

I imagine O2 have a mast in the arena and are able to determine signal strength and make some assumptions from that.

Several masts more likely, even in rural areas with GPS off they’ll have it to 500-1000m. Enough for adverts.

Used to work logistics with on the the big providers and triangulating locations was the main method for catching folk who’d stolen goods from the supply chain.

What OS are you on, Matt?

Landranger 177 or Explorer 162, I reckon.

jam bo – Member

You know the traffic flow information on google maps? It shows you what roads are running slow.. how do you think they know?
See all those thing pointing at you from the side of the road. The ones that aren’t speed cameras…

I know the Tom Tom traffic is worked out via coda phone SIM card tracking, i learnt this when pitting tomyim vehicle trackers in my commercial trucks. I assume googles is similar.

Google traffic info is sourced from the movement data of Android phones where people have allowed Google to use their location data.

Trafficmaster used to have a camera network that read number plates to work out speeds on various roads. I’ve no idea if it’s still running (and I can’t be bothered to look it up) but they’ve been seriously disrupted by TomTom initially and now Google.

myaccount.google.com will allow you to see what the magic Google machine in the sky knows about you, including where you’ve been if you’ve got that enabled.

Some traffic monitoring is done by tracking Bluetooth addresses. O2 could also be using this near the Arena.

Google traffic info is sourced from the movement data of Android phones where people have allowed Google to use their location data.

Learn something new every day. That’ll be why it never picks up the traffic jam on the A30 in the middle of Bodmin moor where there isn’t any signal.

Or from you hitting a wifi hotspot!!! There’s many methods of phones being tracked for targeted advertising etc etc etc.

You can see when roads are closed using the traffic overlay on maps as it doesn’t show any traffic flow information – so no red/amber/green line along the road. If the road is closed there’s no phone data to work with so nothing is displayed.

The original TomTom stuff used 2G data off the mobile network which was anonymised (tokenised to be picky) and then run through some very clever processing to match it to roads.

Open Google Maps on your phone. Swipe from the left edge of the screen so you see the menu. Select “your timeline”. This will show your movements.

See all those thing pointing at you from the side of the road. The ones that aren’t speed cameras

When you zoom in and see the minor roads that are covered it’s clearly not all done by traffic cameras.

Open Google Maps on your phone. Swipe from the left edge of the screen so you see the menu. Select “your timeline”. This will show your movements.

*throws phone out of the window*

Go to settings and turn off Location History.
I wonder how long it will be before employers want access to this data on a business phone. It’s like a tracker fitted to a company vehicle.
hand me the Bacofoil!

Google traffic info is sourced from the movement data of Android phones where people have allowed Google to use their location data.

During the Dunwich Dynamo, Google Maps showed a traffic jam on a small section of dual carriageway A-road out in the middle of otherwise rural Suffolk.
This at about 3.30am.

Of course it was a massive volume of cyclists all hitting that section at the same time and all riding about 10mph so Google assumed that it was simply slow-moving traffic and flagged it up as a traffic jam.

My phone seems to know whether I’ve commuted to work via car, train or bike as it flags up traffic jams, train delays or estimated cycling times at about 4.50pm each day specific to the method of transport I used that morning. It sometimes confuses car and bike routes when I’ve ridden in on road but if I use the off-road route it’s pretty good at working out that I must have been on a bike.

Open Google Maps on your phone. Swipe from the left edge of the screen so you see the menu. Select “your timeline”. This will show your movements.

Whoa! it even knows whather I’ve been driving, walking or cycling – how’s it do that? Got a bit confused with kayaking though!

^ That’s just freaked out half my office 😀

Ace, (‘cos I really couldn’t give a monkies if Google knows any details of my tedious existence) thought I don’t remember my brief detour from Chester to Dumfries on my way to work yesterday? 🙂

I don’t have “your timeline”. I am so boring even Google can’t be arsed to stalk me.

Guessing it bases mode of transport on average speed, not sure what it does if you are a fast runner or a slow cyclist.
Though on higher end phones with accelerometers it would be easier to determine mode of transport.

Neither do I timidwheeler!!

You can be tracked anytime your phone is with you. Don’t start thinking you can simply switch off either – taking the battery out is the only surefire way of defeating the system.

🙄

I knew that it must be tracking ion some way as i occasionally get a message telling me how long it will take to get home or where i parked the car.

A bit surprised about the ‘your timeline’ on google maps although i was assured by the app that only i could see it. No need to worry about the missus checking my phone then…

(thats a joke love when you read this)

😀

I had location services turned off on my phone

I’ve still no idea how google knows where I work 😯

Tinfoil hats aside, we’re conflating a few things here.

Your phone – all mobile phones – are trackable by your phone company in so far as the phone mast knows what’s connected to it at any given time. With signal strength and triangulation with other masts it’s possible to tell where your phone is to a vague degree of accuracy, depending on mast density in the area (so more accurate in city centres, sub-100m I believe). Whether the phone company records this data or not is (I assume) down to them, but I can’t see a compelling reason not to. It’d be useful information for, as a random example, the emergency services. Or legal issues.

Your smartphone is probably equipped with a GPS receiver and so will know with pretty high accuracy where it is whilst this is enabled. It can also use the Wi-Fi signal to hazard a “coarse” guess based on the hotspots and suchlike it can see. This is how your location profile is built, and what is sent Google ( / Apple / Microsoft) if you enable Location Reporting.

Location History is something else again. Enabling this is what makes your maps history and things like Google Now work. Assuming you believe Google (and if you don’t then you’ve seriously wasted your money on a phone), if you delete your history then that data is gone for good. So there’s nothing to stop you from enabling Reporting but not History if you so desire.

Think you all need to be careful about using the likes of Siri and the Android equivalent. A little temp job I’ve got recently is transcribing what people have been saying to their phones. Going by some of the content I’d be very surprised if they knew someone would be listening.

Yeah, the T&Cs for Cortana are sobering / terrifying reading too.

BTW – interesting “further reading” on my last post: http://www.androidcentral.com/understanding-googles-android-location-tracking

Essentially it is 1984, but what you need to decide if its a the nefarious version or just the make as much money from advertising revenue as possible version! 😆

The answer to that should determine the level of paranoia. 😆

Also any other apps you install could be tracking your location. Check what permissions they require.
eg it seems Facebook Messenger could track you.