Invasion of Privacy on cell phone

[Madelaine Amee]

There must be some retired IT people who visit this site and I have a request of them. My son visited recently and since he returned to his northern State his phone has been inundated with information of TV. Big brother must have latched onto him and would like to know whether there is anything he can do to make his phone private. Would appreciate any ideas you may have.

I am wondering whether there is a form of VPN for cell phones.

[Bill14564]

There must be some retired IT people who visit this site and I have a request of them. My son visited recently and since he returned to his northern State his phone has been inundated with information of TV. Big brother must have latched onto him and would like to know whether there is anything he can do to make his phone private. Would appreciate any ideas you may have.

I am wondering whether there is a form of VPN for cell phones.

Inundated in what way? Has he been receiving phone calls and text messages? Has he been receiving emails? Has his social media accounts been filled with advertisements? The cause and solution is different for each of these so more information is needed.

[tophcfa]

Close out any and all apps on the phone.

[GrumpyOldMan]

No, there is pretty much nothing to completely stop it.

The problem is not the cell phone, the problem is he uses (used?) it to access the internet, and pretty close to everything you can access or do on the internet tracking your usage, and then sells that information to advertisers.

Apple iPhones and the latest iOS are taking steps to reduce the tracking, but even with some tracking suppression, it is not yet perfect and companies like Facebook are suing Apple just for providing the iPhone ower the option to opt-out of being tracked in SOME situations by Facebook. Facebook is saying in court "we have a right" to track our users and do anything we want with any information we get.

I would suggest getting an Apple iPhone and updating to the current OS. It will help, but it will not completely solve it. Just like there is no perfect solution to stop spam calls today.

It appears corporations have more rights than people.

[Madelaine Amee]

Thanks for your immediate reply to my post.

He is receiving advertising from restaurants in TV. This made him wonder to what extent his phone is vulnerable. While he and his wife were here they would go out every day on the golf cart and would use the phone to find coffee shops etc. etc. So that could be behind a lot of the ads.

He owns a small business and is continually on his phone, the ads are becoming a real aggravation.

[GrumpyOldMan]

There must be some retired IT people who visit this site and I have a request of them. My son visited recently and since he returned to his northern State his phone has been inundated with information of TV. Big brother must have latched onto him and would like to know whether there is anything he can do to make his phone private. Would appreciate any ideas you may have.

I am wondering whether there is a form of VPN for cell phones.

Yes, there are VPNs for phones. Express VPN is highly rated. However, VPNs bring some amount of complications to using the internet. Some sites get indigestion when you go to them. I used ExpressVPN and a couple of others for a while and had to give up.

However I am a very heavy internet user, and there were some cases I didn't want to have to deal with constantly. Light users may find the option okay. In general, I can't recommend them because of the potential complications.

High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service | ExpressVPN (https://www.expressvpn.com)

[GrumpyOldMan]

Thanks for your immediate reply to my post.

He is receiving advertising from restaurants in TV. This made him wonder to what extent his phone is vulnerable. While he and his wife were here they would go out every day on the golf cart and would use the phone to find coffee shops etc. etc. So that could be behind a lot of the ads.

He owns a small business and is continually on his phone, the ads are becoming a real aggravation.

I assume the ads come in the form of emails? If so there is a lot he can do to block spam emails.

Email services like iCloud and GMail have provisions for automatic spam/junk mail blocking, and most email clients/apps have the ability to flag email sources as spam and to block/delete them.

Even the best spam filters and blockers will still let some through, it is a constant curse. but it can be reduced to something that is workable.

I use iCloud and Apple Mail (windows and Andriod and GMail offer similar abilities) and they currently block about 200 to 300 spam/junk emails per day for me. And yet, about 2 or 3 still get through every day.

[tophcfa]

No, there is pretty much nothing to completely stop it.

The problem is not the cell phone, the problem is he uses (used?) it to access the internet, and pretty close to everything you can access or do on the internet tracking your usage, and then sells that information to advertisers.

Apple iPhones and the latest iOS are taking steps to reduce the tracking, but even with some tracking suppression, it is not yet perfect and companies like Facebook are suing Apple just for providing the iPhone ower the option to opt-out of being tracked in SOME situations by Facebook. Facebook is saying in court "we have a right" to track our users and do anything we want with any information we get.

I would suggest getting an Apple iPhone and updating to the current OS. It will help, but it will not completely solve it. Just like there is no perfect solution to stop spam calls today.

It appears corporations have more rights than people.

Bingo, that’s why I don’t use Facebook.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Close out any and all apps on the phone.

Since the issue is he is doing business using the phone, not using apps is not a solution. Email, Safari/Chrome, etc are apps and can be tracked.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Sounds to me like his settings need to be changed. If you set your cell phone to "check in" (location services), you're giving those locations permission to a) know that you're there and b) remind you to come back. If you don't want that to happen, you have to set your privacy settings to prevent it. I have -never- had an advertisement targeted for me from local businesses that I didn't intentionally sign up to receive.

I do get random spam from strangers, but that's because the person who had this phone number before I signed up for the cellular service was of dubious moral fiber (opportunities to "date" strangers, offers for loans, collection notices, etc etc). But they're all looking for Simone, and I'm not Simone. She's the one who had the phone number before it was assigned to me (yes, phone numbers get recycled).

In any case, it's nothing the stores and businesses are "doing" actively. They have their ads out and available, and those ads will automatically tag you if you've set your cell phone up to receive them. Turn off that feature, and you won't get the ads anymore.

[Polar Bear]

Since the issue is he is doing business using the phone, not using apps is not a solution. Email, Safari/Chrome, etc are apps and can be tracked.
I don’t think the suggestion is to not use his apps. But totally closing them out after use…not letting them run in the background…can help some.

[JohnN]

He should remove any cookies from his browser, that may be a quick fix.
Like another reply said, if you use your electronics, someone's tracing you and trying to sell you something.

[Dana1963]

There must be some retired IT people who visit this site and I have a request of them. My son visited recently and since he returned to his northern State his phone has been inundated with information of TV. Big brother must have latched onto him and would like to know whether there is anything he can do to make his phone private. Would appreciate any ideas you may have.

I am wondering whether there is a form of VPN for cell phones.
A VPN encryption does not block cookies or malware received from sites visited.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Bingo, that’s why I don’t use Facebook.

I agree, but it is not just Facebook.

Apple's latest Safari browser attempts to block tracking, and reports (icon on addressbar) to you how many and which trackers are on a website.

It has been very illuminating how many trackers are being blocked at sites I would never have thought about. It blocks literally hundreds of trackers every day.

So sad that companies have more rights than citizens.

[GrumpyOldMan]

A VPN encryption does not block cookies or malware received from sites visited.

True, VPNs are to hide or disguise your address, so trackers can't track you and sell your browsing habits to advertisers.

[GrumpyOldMan]

I don’t think the suggestion is to not use his apps. But totally closing them out after use…not letting them run in the background…can help some.

Okay, good point.

On Apple iPhones, you have to give permission to apps to track you in the background. I am not familiar with Android, but I expect they also provide that ability. I guess the difference is iPhones can only get apps from Apple's App store which has rigorous testing before an app can be listed on the app store. It isn't perfect, but they try.

If I understand Android phones correctly you can download any app from anywhere you want, which opens it up to more "malware".

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

On Android, you open your settings, then go to apps. Scroll down to the apps that are giving you headaches. Press them. Under permissions, toggle OFF the permission for "location."

The app might or might not work properly if you do that, but you can always toggle it back on when you want to actually use the app.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Sounds to me like his settings need to be changed. If you set your cell phone to "check in" (location services), you're giving those locations permission to a) know that you're there and b) remind you to come back. If you don't want that to happen, you have to set your privacy settings to prevent it. I have -never- had an advertisement targeted for me from local businesses that I didn't intentionally sign up to receive.

I do get random spam from strangers, but that's because the person who had this phone number before I signed up for the cellular service was of dubious moral fiber (opportunities to "date" strangers, offers for loans, collection notices, etc etc). But they're all looking for Simone, and I'm not Simone. She's the one who had the phone number before it was assigned to me (yes, phone numbers get recycled).

In any case, it's nothing the stores and businesses are "doing" actively. They have their ads out and available, and those ads will automatically tag you if you've set your cell phone up to receive them. Turn off that feature, and you won't get the ads anymore.

Well, a couple of points. You are being tracked. PERIOD. I guarantee if you purchase something (almost anything) online you will start seeing ads on websites advertising those items. There are NO settings that will prevent that.

Where you get emails from is more complex, and you can certainly set settings to cut down on letting your email address out, but there are places online that in order to do business (like our vet office, bank, Facebook, Twitter, etc) that require you to give them your email address. Those businesses can/do sell your email address. Many give you the option to not sell or distribute it, but not all.

And even if the site you are doing business with promises to not distribute your email address - sites are hacked daily - every single day, and sometimes very large numbers of accounts are compromised. That results in YOUR email address being circulated on the "dark web" and being sold to people, who then validate that your address is valid and active and in turn then sell it at a premium to advertising companies.

And I see you qualified your statement with "local" businesses. A lot of so-called "local" businesses are not local. And second, companies advertise on the internet. Almost NONE of them do it themselves. They simply provide ad content to an advertising company and pay some amount per "hit". A hit being someone responds, either by clicking an email, or visiting a targeted IP address, or many other ways.

I expect your email service provider is doing some amount of spam blocking for you.

[GrumpyOldMan]

One of the things I see here is a misunderstanding of spam and how it works. There is very little spam resulting from apps running on your phone or computer.

Spam is a result of your email address being circulated among people and companies on the internet that make money by buying and selling your email address. It only has to be leaked ONCE to get into the system and it takes years to fall out. The only sure way to completely stop emails coming to a specific email address is to close that email account. I research Gmail a while back (Gmail is one of the largest email providers) and found I did not like the information they (Google) were collecting from my emails. So, I changed to iCloud. I canceled my Gmail account and went through months of updating websites and companies with my new email address.

Since then there has been a slowly increasing rate of spam on my new iCloud account. ICloud and Apple's mail client have excellent spam filtering and while I now get around 200 to 300 spams per day, I only ever see a very few (5 maybe?)

[PugMom]

Yes, there are VPNs for phones. Express VPN is highly rated. However, VPNs bring some amount of complications to using the internet. Some sites get indigestion when you go to them. I used ExpressVPN and a couple of others for a while and had to give up.

However I am a very heavy internet user, and there were some cases I didn't want to have to deal with constantly. Light users may find the option okay. In general, I can't recommend them because of the potential complications.

High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service | ExpressVPN (https://www.expressvpn.com)

this post is correct- i tried a vpn only to have a good numbers of sites i visit no longer 'work.' is a good idea but needs more development

[villagetinker]

On android phones it is possible to turn off the GPS function, I keep mine off. Now as noted above this will interfere with some apps. I have Google play so limited that I get multiple warnings each day from Google. I have gone to each app, where necessary I have turned off access to the camera, photos, location, call data etc., this helped greatly.
Also, I made the mistake once of signing up for 'rewards' from a restaurant with my phone, I will never do that again. If a store wants me to sign up for rewards, it must be by my home computer where I have more control.
Hope this helps.

[retiredguy123]

I read all of the posts, but I still don't understand the issue. I don't care if I am being tracked or if I get spam email. And, as far as I know, my Android phone has never stopped working because of malware or anything else. I get a telemarketing calls, but I love talking to those people.

[SteveM96]

Great thread. I just bought a home at TV but I still work and run an IT organization. We contemplate our employee mobile device experience quite a bit. There are a few things that if done, really can help here. 1. email: if you have a "free" email account (i.e. Gmail), everything you do with that "free" service is tracked and that data is sold. Some on this thread are okay with that and some are not. If you don't like it, try a paid, secure email service like Protonmail. 2. browser: the browser (Safari, Chrome, etc.) you use gives the developer a wealth of knowledge about what you do at all times and they make money off that. Did your son search for "restaurants near me" using his phone's browser or something like that while he was down there? Is he logged into his phone's browser with the same "free" email account? There are a number of secure browser options he can download and use like Brave and Firefox Focus that are really good. 3. search engine: most browsers use Google as the default search engine so when you search for "restaurants near me" Google is performing the search (and making money off that search). Doing it on Chrome, logged in with your Gmail account pretty much allows them to track everything you do on the phone. Try changing the default browser to Duck Duck Go. I play around with GPS settings but haven't been able to optimize it as map apps need it and I depend on that app. I've settled in on leaving it on and only letting Google Maps keep my trips for the shortest time before deleting. Hope this helps.

[fastboat]

No, there is pretty much nothing to completely stop it.

The problem is not the cell phone, the problem is he uses (used?) it to access the internet, and pretty close to everything you can access or do on the internet tracking your usage, and then sells that information to advertisers.

Apple iPhones and the latest iOS are taking steps to reduce the tracking, but even with some tracking suppression, it is not yet perfect and companies like Facebook are suing Apple just for providing the iPhone ower the option to opt-out of being tracked in SOME situations by Facebook. Facebook is saying in court "we have a right" to track our users and do anything we want with any information we get.

I would suggest getting an Apple iPhone and updating to the current OS. It will help, but it will not completely solve it. Just like there is no perfect solution to stop spam calls today.

It appears corporations have more rights than people.

If that is what Facebook is really saying and doing, they need to be shutdown, completely.

[davephan]

Way too much was left out of the original post to know what is occurring! Is the spam in the form or texts, phone calls, emails, or some other communication, like Messenger?

The other important things are, is the cellphone number used for business, which you recently answered, yes. The other important thing to know is Android or Apple. The other important thing to know is which cellular carrier?

If the cellphone was not used for business, and the cellphone is an iPhone, then the solution is pretty simple to significantly reduce the spam. Simply turn on “Silence Unknown Callers”. For the texts, you can silence the unknown texts too. If you have T-Mobile service, they offer additional screening.

Now, since the cellphone is used for business, then this limits your ability to screen out spam. One thing that could help is to not use the real cellphone number for the business. Instead, use Google Voice for the business.

Sign up for a free Google Voice line and install the Google Voice app on an iPhone. If the cellphone is an Android, it should be replaced with an iPhone. Next, port the business telephone number to Google Voice. Then replace the real cellphone number with a different real cellphone number.

Then lock down the real cellphone by turning on the filtering for the incoming telephone calls and texts. You will then have two telephone numbers with that cellphone. One is the real cellphone number, which is only used for people on your contact list. The other telephone number is the Google Voice line, that is only used for business calls.

Google Voice has some built in filtering. Each initial incoming telephone call needs to be “approved” by you. I think that the initial incoming texts also have to be approved by you.

If you don’t have T-Mobile service, and tge T-Mobile cellular coverage is good enough for you, then you could switch to T-Mobile for additional spam protection to the real cellphone number.

It’s a big mistake to use the real cellphone number for a business, since you are opening yourself up to getting a lot of spam, since you can’t lock down the real cellphone number.

Using a Google Voice number for the business and keeping your real cellphone number private, should drastically reduce the spam problems. Then in the future, keep your real cellphone number private. Give out your Google Voice number to “random” people. You can also start locking down apps on the iPhone to limit or stop the tracking activity.

[raananh]

When I visit Mexico for vacation, all the ads I see later on are in Spanish.

When I chat about cruises on my phone, suddenly I get a lot of ad and e-mail(s) related to cruises.

Yes, we are being watched. Yes, eventually, they learn something new about us and will promote that instead of the old "outdated" data they have about us.

[Girlcopper]

Thanks for your immediate reply to my post.

He is receiving advertising from restaurants in TV. This made him wonder to what extent his phone is vulnerable. While he and his wife were here they would go out every day on the golf cart and would use the phone to find coffee shops etc. etc. So that could be behind a lot of the ads.

He owns a small business and is continually on his phone, the ads are becoming a real aggravation.
I get the same thing all the time. Block n delete, Rather than getting a headache over it. Simple. No matter what this is the technology generation. If you dont want unwanted ads etc, the use your phone as a PHONE and quit researching things

[Madelaine Amee]

My thanks to everyone who took the time to help with y son's problem. I will pass everything along to him and let him take it from here.

[DIver0258]

Tracking cookies in their browser are the likely reason for the ads. Google is one of the worst about tracking to develop ads relevant to searches done on Google. All major players do this. There are privacy setting it each online account to assist with privacy. Have them delete their cookies and browsing history on the phones web browser. Yes there are VPNs for cellular devices. I use IP Vanish. It works on all platforms. Once an account is set up, you can use their VPN on every device you own.

[RICH1]

Thanks for your immediate reply to my post.

He is receiving advertising from restaurants in TV. This made him wonder to what extent his phone is vulnerable. While he and his wife were here they would go out every day on the golf cart and would use the phone to find coffee shops etc. etc. So that could be behind a lot of the ads.

He owns a small business and is continually on his phone, the ads are becoming a real aggravation.
It's similar to when we google Men's diapers , we will be inundated with advertisement for senior living assisted devices.... it's all about tracking & location services

[Eg_cruz]

No, there is pretty much nothing to completely stop it.

The problem is not the cell phone, the problem is he uses (used?) it to access the internet, and pretty close to everything you can access or do on the internet tracking your usage, and then sells that information to advertisers.

Apple iPhones and the latest iOS are taking steps to reduce the tracking, but even with some tracking suppression, it is not yet perfect and companies like Facebook are suing Apple just for providing the iPhone ower the option to opt-out of being tracked in SOME situations by Facebook. Facebook is saying in court "we have a right" to track our users and do anything we want with any information we get.

I would suggest getting an Apple iPhone and updating to the current OS. It will help, but it will not completely solve it. Just like there is no perfect solution to stop spam calls today.

It appears corporations have more rights than people.
I have the iPhone and have updated. My question is ....is there a place in the setting where I can go and turn the non-following feature. I get asked when I open some apps but not all. Is there a one and done place where I can just do for all apps?
Thank you for your help

[OhioBuckeye]

First find out who’s involved with your phone service, that may tell you something about who’s hacking into your phone!

[Bay Kid]

If you were in dc on the 6th of Jan. your phone is potentially being investigated. Doesn't matter if you were there visiting a friend, dining or shopping. Everything you do on your phone can be tracked by the govern. There is no privacy with a phone.

[airstreamingypsy]

One of the settings on the phono is "Location" if it's turned on the phone knows where you've been. That's how it knows he was in The Villages. He can turn it off, but if he drives his car in a ditch no one can find him. My Android phone is run by Google, Google knows everywhere I go. I don't really care, I use ad blockers, and ignore ads that get through.

[butlerism]

use duckduckgo browser
look up privacy tips.

[J1ceasar]

if you download blumail - it aggregates your various email accounts onto one page. GMail itself has a great spam filter as does bluemail ...

if its texts - hit spam each time.... also try searching for restaurants in your town a few times to reset google search.

[GrumpyOldMan]

I have the iPhone and have updated. My question is ....is there a place in the setting where I can go and turn the non-following feature. I get asked when I open some apps but not all. Is there a one and done place where I can just do for all apps?
Thank you for your help

Go into settings, scroll down a ways to Privacy.

The top two options,

Location Services - turning it off will stop providing your location to all Apps including photos. If you want to continue to tag "Photos", leave it on, and turn off any apps you don't trust listed below the two options.

Tracking. Selecting this option will deny all "new" apps from tracking, but sadly if you have already approved any, you will have to turn those off individually in the list below the option.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Well, a couple of points. You are being tracked. PERIOD. I guarantee if you purchase something (almost anything) online you will start seeing ads on websites advertising those items. There are NO settings that will prevent that.

Where you get emails from is more complex, and you can certainly set settings to cut down on letting your email address out, but there are places online that in order to do business (like our vet office, bank, Facebook, Twitter, etc) that require you to give them your email address. Those businesses can/do sell your email address. Many give you the option to not sell or distribute it, but not all.

And even if the site you are doing business with promises to not distribute your email address - sites are hacked daily - every single day, and sometimes very large numbers of accounts are compromised. That results in YOUR email address being circulated on the "dark web" and being sold to people, who then validate that your address is valid and active and in turn then sell it at a premium to advertising companies.

And I see you qualified your statement with "local" businesses. A lot of so-called "local" businesses are not local. And second, companies advertise on the internet. Almost NONE of them do it themselves. They simply provide ad content to an advertising company and pay some amount per "hit". A hit being someone responds, either by clicking an email, or visiting a targeted IP address, or many other ways.

I expect your email service provider is doing some amount of spam blocking for you.

I have 8 different e-mail addresses and use each one for different things. If I need to supply an e-mail address to a company that I know will end up giving me ridiculous spam, I give them a specific e-mail address. They can spam it all they want. Once a month I open the account, hit "select all" and "delete." I never read any of the e-mails on that account, and never use that account to send anyone anything, because that's my spam account. Another one is for professional services only. My doctor, my dentist, my lawyer, the pesticide guy, the e-mail of the guy who works for the company that did our windows. The company that did our windows? THEY get a third e-mail address. That's for "companies that I rarely ever do business with but want to keep their info handy just in case."

Another one is for personal friends and family. And so on and so forth.

I have a spam-blocker, an ad blocker, I run ccleaner and malwarebytes on my desktop every so often, and I have a little .exe file on my hard drive that I keep just in case none of my security measures worked and someone sent me a particularly nasty trojan that sometimes slips through random peoples' computers. That file will meet the trojan and basically smack it upside the head.

I also use FBP, aka "Fluff Busting Purity," an extension for Facebook that prevents ads and lets you filter out (or in) and sort and configure just about anything Facebook can do, and several things it can't do, but you'd want it to do.

The only ads I ever see, are ads I intentionally try to see. They don't appear on my computer at all, otherwise. I get ads on a few apps on my phone (Waze has in-app ads) but they're unobtrusive and easily ignored.

[asianthree]

I am a little surprised a younger person doesn’t know their phone better, to turn off tracking, add app to avoid issues. Really don’t need a IT guy, most grandchildren can fix a phone in minutes