Turn Your Phone Radios Off

TASK: On your mobile device, turn off the radios you are not using at the time. This includes Bluetooth, Cellular, Wifi and Near Field Communication (NFC).

WHY: Your phone has four radios installed as mentioned above. Each one can be used to track you. For Wifi and Bluetooth most phones keep the same Bluetooth/MAC address, just a series of numbers and letters that uniquely identify your device. Most people link their real world identity to their phones, via cell plans or purchasing the device with a card rather than cash. This means that as you walk in an out of shops in a shopping mall for example, you can be tracked via Bluetooth as your Bluetooth/MAc address stays the same and it is linked to your name. Most physical Wifi providing locations are known (public and private), this means that your MAC address, the Wifi address identifier, can be used by third parties to know where you are and where you have been. Cellular is an obvious one, the carrier usually has your personal details, your position can be triangulated whenever you phone is being used as a phone, i.e. with cellular turned on. This can be quite accurate in some scenarios like built up areas. Mobile phone providers happily share your information with advertisers and other third parties. So, turn your device radios off when not in use.