Keep apps, , from tracking your whereabouts with KitKat’s new cation settings

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 12 Nov 2013

By now, has your whole life story pegged. It knows what you’re typing to friends in Gmail, where you’ve been where you’re going, what you’re searching for on a daily basis, who you hang out with on +. There’s not much the company doesn’t know about you.

So, to give you more control over which apps collect your location data, the means by which they do it, added in a more obvious cation Services panel in Android 4.4 KitKat. Now you can see what is doing with your location information which apps are requesting that data. It’s relatively easy to figure out, but here’s a quick walkthrough of what all the settings actually do how to turn them on off.

More obvious, detailed location control

The cation Services settings panel.

On Android 4.4 KitKat, simply pull down the Notifications shade at the top of the screen select the Settings icon, then tap the cation icon at the bottom-right. You’ll be taken directly to the cation Services panel. There, you can tell your phone was methods to use to determine your location.

If you leave it set to High accuracy, your device will use G, -Fi, mobile network towers to pinpoint your location. If you choose Battery saving, you’ll only use -Fi the network for your location. There is also a Device only setting, which only utilizes G. If you find that you use Maps its turn-by-turn navigation features often, you may want to consider leaving it on High accuracy for best results. Turn-by-turn directions will still work in the Device only mode, though it’s not as accurate.

Save a bit of your battery life with the Battery saving setting for the cation mode.

Below that, you’ll notice that there is a list of the apps that have most recently requested your location. Selecting them will merely take you to the app’s device settings panel. The real important information is underneath each app title, which lets you know how much battery each app or service is utilizing.

Controlling ‘s access

You’ll also notice a cation Reporting option. Select it to turn both cation Reporting cation History on or off.

You can choose to turn cation Reporting cation History on off from the location settings menu.

explains what each service does in the official Android 4.4 KitKat manual:

• cation Reporting allows to periodically store use your device’s most recent location data in connection with your Account. cation Reporting is a per-device setting.

• cation History allows to store a history of your location data from all devices where you’re logged into your Account have enabled cation Reporting.

The company promises that it won’t share the information with other users or marketers without your permission. It also explains that if you’ve opted-in to cation History in the past, it will use that previously recorded information to suggest locations to you in the future. Turning off cation History will stop your device from recording anything, but it won’t delete that past data.