Android 15 may let you block your location from your cell phone carrier،
Your cell phone knows a lot about you. Particularly sensitive data that your phone regularly broadcasts is your location. Apps demand access, eager to know where you spend your time: at home, at work, or at that new coffee shop around the corner. Enough to make a person concerned about their privacy shiver.
The technical essentials on HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer)
When an app wants to know your location on Android, it uses the operating system's tools, which the operating system can easily grant or deny. However, phone manufacturers don't make every part of your device. That super important cellular radio that keeps you connected? It often has its own firmware that Android can only really leverage in specific ways. The new superpower arrives Android 15 will allow your phone to block your location from the device's cellular radio unless it is a true emergency. Now, tracking cellular location is complex. Your phone can tell the network where it is to get a better solution, or the network can force your phone to reveal its location without you even knowing. The latter type is generally reserved for emergencies. Fortunately, Android 15 wants to prevent the network from spying on you outside of these dire scenarios.
This change will not make your phone invisible, however. By using only the towers you connect to, your carrier can always guess where you are. And this brand new feature depends on the manufacturer supporting cellular radio, which is a no-brainer (especially on older phones). At least Google's Pixel devices, with their custom chips, should work well.
This Android 15 the update will be welcome, but the fight for true location privacy is not over. It could even help protect against those nasty “Stingray” devices that try to steal phone data by acting as cell phone towers. While this is a step forward, expect smart carriers and app developers to find other ways to see where you are.
