{"id":50884,"date":"2026-02-02T17:21:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50884"},"modified":"2026-02-02T17:21:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:21:29","slug":"ios-26-3-limit-carrier-location-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/02\/ios-26-3-limit-carrier-location-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"iOS 26.3: Limit Carrier Location Tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/26\/ios-26-3-limit-precise-location\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/26\/ios-26-3-limit-precise-location\/\">\n<p>Mobile networks determine location based on the cellular towers that a device connects to, but with the setting enabled, some of the data typically made available to mobile networks is being restricted. Rather than being able to see location down to a street address, carriers will instead be limited to the neighborhood where a device is located, for example.<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/126101\">new support document<\/a>, iPhone models from supported network providers will offer the limit precise location feature. In the U.S., only Boost Mobile will support the option, but EE and BT will offer support in the UK.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/an.dywa.ng\/carrier-gnss.html\">Andy Wang<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=46838597\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/an.dywa.ng\/carrier-gnss.html\">\n<p>The feature is only available to devices with Apple&rsquo;s in-house modem introduced in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>[Cellular] standards have built-in protocols that make your device silently send GNSS (i.e. GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou) location to the carrier. This would have the same precision as what you see in your Map apps, in single-digit metres.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>A major caveat is that I don&rsquo;t know if RRLP and LPP are the exact techniques, and the only techniques, used by DEA, Shin Bet, and possibly others to collect GNSS data; there could be other protocols or backdoors we&rsquo;re not privy to.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juli Clover: Mobile networks determine location based on the cellular towers that a device connects to, but with the setting enabled, some of the data typically made available to mobile networks is being restricted. Rather than being able to see location down to a street address, carriers will instead be limited to the neighborhood where [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-02-02T22:21:32Z","apple_news_api_id":"5f323c1c-f7af-4874-b522-03e2e540b8c9","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-02-02T22:21:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXzI8HPevSHS1IgPi5UC4yQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2728,2833,132,432,31,2741,85,2727,2835,355],"class_list":["post-50884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-c1","tag-apple-c1x","tag-carrier","tag-gps","tag-ios","tag-ios-26","tag-iphone","tag-iphone-16e","tag-iphone-air","tag-privacy"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50885,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50884\/revisions\/50885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}