Your iPhone gathers a lot more location data than you may have originally thought. Every place you’ve ever visited — the supermarket, where you work, your home — is being stored on your iPhone, including the address and the number of times you’ve been to that location.
It’s all part of a feature in your privacy settings called ‘Frequent Locations’, and while it’s definitely not new, it often goes unnoticed. For years now, the system has been pinpointing the places you visit on a map and logging your arrival and departure times from each location. This is a divorce lawyer’s dream. But what horrifies me is that it’s so secret.
As you go about your daily routine, your iPhone makes note of where you are and how long you’re there. When it starts detecting patterns, it marks the spot as a frequent location. It assumes workplace location based on where you are during the day and your house address based on where you are at night, and it tracks various repeated locations regardless of time: friends’ houses, favorite restaurants and the like.
If you don’t want your tech tracking you, here’s what you do:
- Open your ‘Settings’ menu
- Select ‘Privacy’
- Select ‘Location Services’
- Scroll really far down and select ‘System Services’
- Scroll more and select ‘Frequent Locations’
- Select ‘Clear History’
- Swipe left on the ‘Frequent Locations’ tab to turn it off
