Secret map on your phone that shows you everywhere you’ve been – and how to turn it off

Years ago you might have been branded a conspiracy theorist for claiming your cell phone was tracking you – but not anymore.

Your iPhone keeps track of where you’ve ever been and you can view it in map form with just a few clicks.

It can be quite a useful feature if you are forgetful. For example, your phone can automatically generate directions home or find your parked car.

So it makes sense for the phone to keep an internal log of your whereabouts. But if this is something you are not comfortable with, read on.

The tracking feature is part of location services and a more in-depth feature called Significant Locations.

Want to know how to open it and disable it if you want? Here are the steps:

● Open your iPhone settings.

● Tap Privacy and Security.

● Select Location Services.

● Scroll down and tap System Services.

● Scroll until you see Significant Locations and tap it.

After entering your password or opening your phone with FaceID, you’ll see a list of locations you’ve visited.

Some may seem a little strange to you, but that’s because the location isn’t always precise.

Tap a place and a page opens with more details, including a map showing where he thought you were. It would have you close even if it didn’t hold you just right.

It is also possible to delete your history from important locations. Here’s how:

● Go to Settings > Privacy and security > Location services > System services and tap Significant locations.

● Tap Clear History. This action will erase all your important locations on all devices signed in with the same Apple ID.

If you don’t want your iPhone to track your whereabouts, you can turn off Significant Locations. Here’s how:

● Go to Settings > Privacy and security > Location services > System services and tap Significant locations.

● Slide the switch next to Key Locations to the left to disable the setting.

If you’ve been using Google Maps for years, there’s probably a surprising amount of information out there about where you’ve been. To look at:

● Once signed in, click your profile picture and select Manage your Google account. Or go to your Google account page here.

● Click Data & privacy on the left.

● Under ‘History Settings’, click Location History.

● At the bottom, click Manage History.

You will see a map with details such as your saved home, work locations and travels. You can search by year or by a specific day in the Timeline box in the top left corner.

For fun, pick a date from a few years ago. You will see a blue bar if a journey has been registered. Click on a day to see where you’ve been, down to the time and mileage.

You may have enjoyed the walk down memory alley. Or maybe it gave you the creeps. You can adjust your settings to prevent Google from tracking all your trips.

● Go back to your Google account page.

● Click Data & privacy on the left.

● Choose Location History under ‘History Settings’. Click Disable.

According to Apple, this feature exists so that the phone can learn places that are important to us and thereby provide personalized services such as predictive traffic routing and enhanced Photos Memories.

That said, it seems like an invasion of privacy and can lead to real problems. If the phone tracks our whereabouts, who else knows about it?

According to Apple, no one. It says that the data passing between your cloud-connected devices is encrypted. Unless someone steals your phone and password, there’s nothing they can do to access it.