this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
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[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

First sentence is most important:

Nevada quietly signed an agreement earlier this year with a company that collects location data from cellphones, allowing police to track a device virtually in real time — all without a warrant.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 5 points 15 hours ago

If the police are funded by the government, then that information should legally be publicly available to anyone... this is what is getting towns to stop using Flock as well, when people start asking for that info too.

Not to mention it's probably a Fourth Amendment violation too.

[–] jonesey71@lemmus.org 3 points 1 day ago

Sure they 'can' but I am pretty sure that is still illegal according to the letter of the law, but they aren't going to ever get in trouble for it because the supreme court is trash.

[–] Turret3857 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

airplane mode + WiFi calling. you shouldnt be on your phone while youre driving, and most places have free WiFi, then install a Google free custom ROM to your phone such as LineageOS, iodeOS, GrapheneOS, RestlessOS GSI, or CalyxOS (whenever they come back)

[–] French75@slrpnk.net 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The article doesn't say what methods the police in NV are using, so it might be effective against that particular approach, but in general, airplane mode doesn't prevent phone tracking.

[–] Turret3857 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not denying that you could be correct, but do you have any more information on it not preventing cell tower based triangulation?

This is what I base my claim on: https://grapheneos.org/faq#cellular-tracking

[–] French75@slrpnk.net 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

To clarify, i reread, and the article does say they are buying the data from Fog Data. I've read elsewhere that Fog Data logs location data from installed apps using location services. I don't know if that's the only method Fog Data uses. If it is, turning off location services should significantly impair this approach. Airplane mode would not, though it would probably prevent radio triangulation like you describe.

My comment was that there are a lot of ways that phones record location data, and no single countermeasure stops all of them. In addition to apps using location services, the phones themselves track you in a lot of different ways. For example iPhones continuously monitor and log location data even when the phone is off. They use BTLE mesh when other methods are unavailable.

[–] LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xZIZnMUbZU&t=0

This lawyer does a great job of explaining surveillance technologies and how to avoid them. In the case of Fog Data it works the same as LocateX, relying on the devices advertising ID. In short, deleting the advertising ID and limiting the location permissions of apps to "only while using the app" renders these particular tracking methods ineffective.