Turning off location services feels like a meaningful privacy step. It is one. It’s not a comprehensive solution, and understanding why matters more as tracking methods become more sophisticated and less dependent on explicit permissions.
What GPS off actually stops
Disabling location services on your phone prevents apps from accessing the device’s GPS receiver directly. Apps that request location permission will no longer receive precise coordinates. That’s a real and useful change.
It’s one layer of a multi-layer system.
IP address tracking
Every device connected to the internet communicates through an IP address. Every website and service you connect to sees this address, and it identifies your internet service provider, country, region, and approximate location—typically to the city level, sometimes more specific in dense urban areas.
No permission is required to read your IP address. It’s a fundamental part of how network communication works. A VPN replaces your visible IP address with the address of the VPN server, making your actual location significantly harder to determine through this method.
Wi-Fi triangulation
Modern smartphones continuously scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks—including when you’re not connected to any of them. The physical locations of Wi-Fi access points are extensively mapped in databases maintained by Apple, Google, and others. Your device’s position can be determined by analyzing which networks are visible and at what signal strengths, without any GPS data.
This method works indoors where GPS is unreliable, making it complementary to rather than dependent on satellite positioning. On iOS, disabling Wi-Fi scanning can be done in Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → System Services → Wi-Fi Networking. Android has an equivalent setting in Location → Wi-Fi scanning.
Browser fingerprinting
This is the tracking method least understood by most users. Every browser in use has a specific configuration: screen resolution, installed fonts, system language, time zone, browser version, plugin list, hardware acceleration settings, and dozens of other parameters. The combination of these values, taken together, creates a profile that is often unique—or close to unique—across the global population of browser instances.
No cookie is required. No location permission. No tracking pixel. The fingerprint is assembled passively from information the browser makes available as part of normal operation, and it persists across sessions, private browsing modes, and cleared cookies.
Tools that address fingerprinting: Brave browser blocks fingerprinting techniques by default through its Shields feature. Firefox with privacy.resistFingerprinting enabled in about:config randomizes several fingerprinting vectors. The Tor Browser provides the strongest fingerprint resistance by making all users appear identical.
Bluetooth scanning
Similar to Wi-Fi triangulation, Bluetooth scanning uses the signal strength of nearby Bluetooth devices—whose physical locations may be mapped—to estimate position. Less comprehensive than Wi-Fi triangulation, but an additional data source.
Cellular triangulation
Your mobile carrier maintains continuous approximate location data derived from the cell towers your device connects to. This data exists as a function of the network relationship between your device and your carrier and cannot be addressed through privacy settings. Airplane mode is the only consumer-accessible way to remove this vector.
What actually reduces tracking exposure
A VPN encrypts traffic between your device and the VPN server and replaces your visible IP address. It doesn’t address fingerprinting, cellular triangulation, or Wi-Fi scanning, but it’s a significant step for IP-based tracking.
Brave browser addresses fingerprinting by default and also blocks third-party trackers and ads. For users who don’t want to switch browsers, the uBlock Origin extension reduces tracker exposure on Firefox and other browsers.
Disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning in location settings removes those triangulation vectors when they’re not being actively used.
DNS over HTTPS (available in iOS Settings → Wi-Fi → DNS, and in Firefox settings natively) encrypts DNS queries, preventing your ISP from logging every domain you visit.