Commercial companies can spy on a user using geolocation, foreign intelligence agencies can also use surveillance through official Google applications, lawyer Eleanor Abele told the Prime agency.
According to her, in order to prevent geolocation tracking, it is better not to turn on GPS on the smartphone unnecessarily and turn off all geotags in the camera settings.
Abele added that sometimes location tracking can be helpful. For example, if you were attacked, and you were able to get through to the police, but did not manage to give your address, then law enforcement officers will be able to track where the emergency call came from. Also with an ambulance, the lawyer explained.
According to the expert, in order to check if you are being followed by geolocation, it is enough to dial a combination of numbers on your mobile – * # 21 #. In the same way, you can check if message forwarding is enabled, which can be used by fraudsters to read private letters.
If the answer is “undefined”, then there are no redirects, Abele said.
She added that it is prohibited to use a person’s geolocation for private, including commercial purposes. According to Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, this is a violation of the inviolability of a person’s personal life.
Earlier, the head of the IT department of the software developer Reksoft, Evgeny Chertok, said that by removing a number of applications on a smartphone, you can turn off surveillance by those who collect information about subscribers by default for advertising purposes.