I can’t believe I’ve never thought about this and that no one is really talking about it. GPS is a system that everyone uses everyday on there phone and is constantly tracking your location.
Many people here (including myself) use airplane mode to block mobile data signals so that mobile data companies cannot track your location and sell it to data brokers. But airplane mode doesn’t block GPS (I just tested this now on my phone, maybe your phone works differently). Is GPS somehow designed in a way so that it’s private?
Yes, it is private by technology:
GPS and other systems working the same way are passive, similar to receiving a radio signal. You’re receiving the signal of several satellites at the same time and your device calculates your position based on those signals. You’re basically getting “I’m satellite cool boy and at the next beep it’s exactly five past nine” all the time - only with a bit more precision. Your device does rhen the actusl position calculation locally.
Fun fact! Geo positioning is one off the few things where we need to apply both general and special relativity for real world effects: the effects due to the satellites speed and high distance to earth (and therefore the reduced effect of gravity) cause a significant shift in the speed in which clocks run on those satellites compare to Earth. As we use the exact time to calculate distance and with that position this would cause a huge drift otherwise!
Ok that is really cool!