Your smartphone stores and shares a lot of data with third parties, including data brokers who sell that info to anyone who’ll pay.
Your phone can track you in several ways with varying degrees of accuracy, including GPS, cell towers, public Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Certain apps pair location info with other info they collect while you use that app and share that precise combination of info with third parties.
Your phone might know a lot about your health, including step counts, vital signs, and menstrual cycles.
Companies make constant improvements to their devices and services, which might include the review of commands from users to make sure they are interpreted correctly.
To lower the amount of tracking on your smartphone, you can turn off your phone or switch to Airplane Mode, turn off location services, provide permissions on an app-by-app basis, turn off app tracking, opt yourself out of cell phone carrier ad programs, delete old apps and remove your info from data broker sites.