Google Collects Android Location Data Even When Disabled
Return To ArticleGoogle has been caught collecting location data on every Android device owner since the beginning of this year (that’s for the past 11 months)—even when location services are entirely disabled, according to an investigation conducted by Quartz.
This location-sharing practice doesn’t want your Android smartphone to use any app, or turn on location services, or even have a SIM card inserted. All it wants is to have your Android device to be connected to the Internet.
The investigation revealed that Android smartphones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers, and this data could be used for “Cell Tower Triangulation”—a technique widely used to identify the location of a phone/device using data from three or more nearby cell towers. Each time your Android device comes within the range of a new cell tower, it gathers the cell tower address and sends this data back to Google when the device is connected to a WiFi network or has a cellular data enabled.
