Ever wondered if your apps are keeping an eye on you? I did the legwork, and here’s the inside scoop you should know right now.
It’s happened to all of us – you download an app, excited to try it out, and then BOOM! You’re hit with the “Allow location access?” prompt before you even get a chance to explore. And sure, sometimes it makes sense – like with Google Maps, which can’t help you get anywhere without knowing where you are. But when it’s a shopping app or a filter for your camera? Why do they need to know your exact location? Sounds a bit fishy, right?
To get to the bottom of it, I took on a little experiment. I chose a mix of popular Android apps across different categories – weather, navigation, shopping, social media, and gaming. I installed each one on a test device (a Galaxy S24 Plus, in case you’re wondering), and I carefully tracked when and how each app asked for my location – whether it was in the foreground, in the background, precise, or approximate. I even checked to see if the app would still function without location access. Then, I dug into their privacy policies – all of them – and reached out to the developers for some answers.
What I found out might surprise you. While some apps had legitimate reasons for tracking location, others didn’t have such clear intentions. The lines between what’s necessary and what’s optional were far blurrier than I expected.
Some of the apps followed the official guidelines, but there were plenty of surprises too. Let’s just say, not all location tracking is as innocent as it may seem.