Even if you have not activated the GPS, your movements can be tracked

Many people think that disabling GPS on their smartphones will prevent system tracking, but researchers at Northeastern University in Boston have found that this is not always the case.

"Many people do not realize that they can be found without the use of GPS, mainly because when we think of the site, we connect it to the GPS on the phone."

Narayan and his team did a test that allowed During which he followed people driving through the cities of Boston, Waltham, Mbadachusetts and London. The services of traditional sites on their phones, such as GPS, were stopped and the researchers instead used other sensors. "The goal of our project is to educate people about the weaknesses of these technologies and to pay attention to them to protect themselves and their privacy."

Guevara Nauber, professor at Northeastern University, "There is a whole area called Side Channel Attacks, where side-by-side information is used to infer something, and that can have an impact on security and specifically on the private life."

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Exploited by Google's operating system "Android", the researchers have conducted the study Through sensors in these phones that are not designed to the l '. origin to keep track of the site. These instruments included the accelerometer, which tracks the speed of the phone, the magnetometer, which acts as a digital compbad, and the gyroscope that follows the rotation. "These sensors are originally responsible for other things like changing the screen orientation from horizontal to vertical when moving the phone."

"People do not really realize that their cell phones What you can imagine, even when the GPS is closed by these phones."

In order to track the people tested, the researchers downloaded what appeared to be a flash application, but actually collected data from the sensors. "You must have an application installed on your phone, but once this step is over, all other operations will be automatic," said Narin.

At present, the techniques used by researchers are better in some cities. A place like Boston that has a lot of unique turns and very winding roads, you can get up to 50% accuracy to guess the location of the user, but if there is a place like Manhattan, it's more difficult. "

Tracking gets easier with more information" If you travel the same way every day, we have a very high probability of guessing where you live, where you work and what routes you have traveled, which means that when you take frequent routes, your location may exceed 90%. "We did not really expect such accuracy." Given the evolution of sensors in the smartphones used in the test, and because they have become more accurate, this can become a fundamental tool to violate the privacy of users. "

Although the researchers of" Jam "penetration also applies to iPhones, as they have sensor-type permissions, etc. "

Commenting on this study, a Google spokesman said in a statement to CNBC that" the Android P operating system, the latest operating system published by Google, Restricts access to sensors such as speed indicators and gyroscopes. While Apple refused to comment.

Even with the closing of the GPS to protect privacy while using smart phones, users should be careful to download only official "Google" and "Apple" apps and make sure to update the Run system for the latest version because the new version usually fixes errors in the previous version.