Apple hid a map in your iPhone, and it won't exactly be doing you any favor, other than the predictive traffic routing, that is. The app plots iPhone users' every location, including how often they go there, how long they stay there and when they go there.
Privacy is important. It's so important that even tech companies want to get a piece of yours. But according to the Cupertino brand, users don't have to worry about being tracked.
"This data is kept solely on your device and won't be sent to Apple without your consent. It will be used to provide you with personalized services, such as predictive traffic routing," Apple says on an archived post, which dates back to the iOS 7 — yes, this has been going on that long apparently.
The problem here is that by storing such info on the iPhone, anyone who has access to the device can potentially get ahold of the owner's personal data. Not to say that liars should get away scot-free, but people deserve some degree of privacy.
Without further ado, here are the few simple steps to disable it:
1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap on Privacy.
3. Tap on Location Services.
4. Scroll down and tap on System Services.
5. Scroll down and tap on Frequent Locations. This will open the location history, where tapping on an entry will bring up a map with all the corresponding tracked data.
6. Toggle Frequent Locations.
If it's set to "On," you'd probably want to set it to "Off," not the other way around. As anyone can imagine, Apple really did a bang-up job. It's incredibly detailed, accurately recording users' personal data along with date and time stamps to boot.
However, some would probably say that this doesn't really matter that much because if you have nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear, right? Well, if the thought of your every move being recorded doesn't creep you out, then it's A-OK to leave it on.
