How Much Does Your Phone Really Know About You?

You wake up, check your alarm and have a quick scroll through social media before even getting out of bed. Your phone is already generating information about what you’re doing, which network it’s connected to and, depending on your settings, where it is. Most of us accept that our devices hold the information we deliberately give them, like messages, photos and search histories.

But there’s more to it than information just sitting on your phone. Apps and online services can collect different pieces of information that could be used by others to build a picture of how you spend your time.

What Your Phone Can See

Your phone can generate a lot of information through everyday use. Location services can determine where you are using things such as GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile networks. Apps can also request access to your camera, microphone, contacts, messages, photos and physical activity.

Then there’s your browsing activity, app usage, device information and anything you choose to sync with cloud services. Exactly what’s collected depends on your phone, apps, permissions and privacy settings. But how often do we actually stop to check what we’re agreeing to? Most of us just tap “Allow” or tick the box so the download or update can get moving, without thinking too much about what we’ve just access to.

Your phone manufacturer isn’t necessarily the only company involved either. Different apps have access to different parts of your device, giving each service its own set of information about you. One app might know your location, while another knows what you’ve searched for or which features you use most. But what happens when you put all these pieces of information together?

What Happens When Your Phone Connects The Dots

A regular pattern of activity could suggest when you usually start your day, while repeated visits to the same place can reveal parts of your routine. Your phone doesn’t need to be told, “I go here every Tuesday” when your behaviour is already creating the pattern.

The same applies to your interests. The websites you visit, the content you interact with and the services you use can provide clues about what you like, what you’re researching and even what you might be planning.

Your phone hasn’t suddenly developed detective skills, but when all these pieces of information are put together, they can reveal quite a detailed picture of your life. Your habits, your routines, interests and even your whereabouts can become easier to work out from seemingly ordinary bits of data.

How Much Control Do You Really Have?

Luckily, you’re not completely stuck with whatever settings your phone came with. Both Android and Apple give you ways to check what individual apps can access and change those privacy settings when you want.

It’s worth checking these settings every now and then, especially for apps you barely remember installing. Does that random game you downloaded three years ago really need access to your location? Probably not.

You can also choose how much information you’re comfortable sharing with individual services. Some permissions can be limited to when an app is being used, while location access can sometimes be reduced from precise to approximate.

There’s obviously another side to this. Turning off your permissions can make some apps less useful, so it’s less about blocking everything and more about deciding what you’re comfortable with sharing.

How Much Does Your Phone Really Know?

Your phone isn’t sitting in your pocket keeping a detailed diary of your life. Instead, information generated by your everyday activity can create patterns that reveal things about you, sometimes without you actually providing the information.

We tend to notice the information we knowingly hand over, but it’s easy to forget about everything happening in the background. Next thing you know, an advert for the exact thing you were just thinking about appears on your screen and suddenly you’re wondering how much your phone actually knows.

You don’t need to throw your phone off a cliff and return to a Nokia brick just yet. A quick look through your privacy settings is a much easier place to start. Just be a little more discerning about what you give access to, and if an app asks for permissions that seem unnecessary, ask yourself whether you really need it at all.