Tip of the Week: Stop Location Data Collection on Your Mobile Device

At the beginning of this year, a massive data breach struck a location data broker called Gravy Analytics and took possession of a dataset with 30 million points from devices worldwide. This data could potentially be used to track individuals and their movements, tellingly, through healthcare, government, and military facilities. 

Unfortunately, nothing can be done about data that has already been breached, but preventative steps can and should be taken to protect your business. Let’s discuss how to prevent your applications from tracking your movements.

How to Protect Your Location from Application Data Oversharing

The key to preventing this activity lies in the mobile advertising ID (MAID), a data-based identifier that every mobile device features, almost like browser cookies. Marketers can use MAIDs to see which users have viewed an ad and track their interactions with your business’ brand.

While this sounds reasonable enough, MAIDs can have a dark side.

MAIDs enable ad platforms to effectively single out and track specific users from location to location, creating a more detailed profile of what makes each user tick. This data can then be sold to data brokers, who will resell it for profit.  

This last part concerns many for the reasons referenced above. After all, it enables third parties to track your mobile device behaviors, which many see as a breach of privacy. Plus, parties other than advertisers could easily purchase this data from data brokers, potentially putting a user at risk.

Fortunately, these advertising IDs can be deleted on either Android or iOS.

Deleting the Advertising ID from Android Devices

Since Android 12, users have been able to delete their ad ID permanently. The process for this is relatively simple:

• Open Settings
• From there, access Security & Privacy
• In Privacy, access Ads
• Select Delete advertising ID, and confirm your choice on the next page.

We also recommend that you review your existing app permissions. You can do so through Settings>Privacy & Security>Privacy Controls>Permission Manager.

Deleting the Advertising ID from iOS Devices

During installation, apps will request permissions to access what Apple refers to as the identifier for advertisers, or IDFA. Selecting Ask App Not to Track will deny this access to the IDFA.

You can also go back and revoke any permissions you have already granted by accessing Settings, where you’ll find Privacy & Security. In this menu, you’ll see Tracking, which you can disable en masse via the Allow apps to Request to Track slider or on an app-to-app basis

Apple also features a native advertising system that doesn’t tie into the IDFA. Disabling this is as simple as navigating to Settings, Privacy, and finally, Apple Advertising. There, you can switch off Personalized Ads.

Again, we recommend you audit your existing app permissions via Settings>Privacy & Security.

Your Privacy and Security is Worth Protecting…

…as is the privacy and security of your clients, contacts, and employees. We can help you secure your business’ IT and stay protected against threats. Reach out to us via (254) 848-7100.