Smartphones can be tracked even when GPS is turned off
Smartphone users may not even know they are being tracked even if they have turned off GPS location services, according to Princeton University researchers.
The team of Arsalan Mosenia, Xiaoliang Dai, Prateek Mittal, and Niraj Jha combined information from phone and non-phone sources to determine the location of a device. The technique, called PinMe, showed that it was possible to track location even when location services, GPS, and Wi-Fi were turned off.
Data used to track a device includes the phone's time zone and information from sensors, such as air pressure. When combined with public information such as maps, the device's location can be estimated without location services.
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Because these data sources do not require user permission to operate and only collect small amounts of data, this method is “virtually undetectable.”
The findings, first published in September 2017 and then republished in February 2018, show that despite users’ best efforts, their device location and, potentially, their location is being tracked. For users who try to hide their real location, whether for personal or professional reasons, this can be a problem.
The sensor data used in this exploit is commonly used for motion and fitness tracking applications, the researchers said. A way to turn off the sensors, similar to how you turn off GPS, could help avoid being secretly tracked using the PinMe method, the researchers said.
