Google stops secretly tracking cellular location info

Google is ending a practice in which certain Android cellphone location information was captured, following an online investigation that raised questions about how the information might impact your privacy.  The report states that software on Android phones gathers location data and sends it back to Google, even if you’ve actively turned off location settings on your phone, haven’t used any apps, or even if you haven’t inserted a SIM card from your carrier. The phone would have to be connected to the Internet.  Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers since the beginning of 2016, giving Google access to location information that goes “far beyond a reasonable consumer expectation of privacy.” Google said it chose to end the practice right after the report was brought to its attention. In a rather technical statement, Google offered an explanation: “To ensure messages and notifications are received quickly, modern Android phones use a network sync system that requires the use of Mobile Country Codes (MCC) and Mobile Network Codes (MNC). In January of this year, we began looking into using Cell ID codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery.”