Others online have mentioned this and now I know I'm not crazy. Since the OneUI7 update my phone and tablet say that Google play services are constantly accessing my location. There could be a variety of factors to this on a phone, but on my wifi only tablet this was never an issue until OneUI7.
Pre-Android 15 (OneUI6.2, etc.)
- (Since android 10) there was/is a "location in use" icon (
). From what I've gathered this mostly appeared when apps tried to get the current location (not cached location) of the device AND the application was active/foreground or very recently used. This did not trigger on system applications/services (google play services, continuity, phone, etc.)
- This is what we were used to seeing, but we didn't see it often except when we expected to (navigation, etc)
- "Phone Services" wouldn't trigger the location indicator because it's a system service that runs in the background
Android 15 (OneUI7)
- Location indicator is now green and colorful
- Location reporting in Android 15 now includes ALL system applications/services, AND any background requests for the current location (which increases the number of apps that will be reported as using your location)
- "Phone Services" and all other services that didn't trigger this icon before, trigger the icon now
This is what's causing confusion, you likely aren't being tracked any more than you were before, but your phone is now telling you everything that's tracking you including services in the background. Most people weren't told GPS/location indicator was fundamentally changing. Nor is it in any feature/change/update list I can find anywhere for OneUI7 or Android 15 (seriously, Google it)
Even still, this isn't ideal in it's current state:
- This "full transparency indicator" is nice, but if it's on essentially 24/7, we need a way to hide services/apps that make it appear. An indicator that's 'always on' because of background services that you can't disable is arguably pointless altogether. I'm not going to tap the indicator every few minutes to see if something other than "services" is using my location. The usefulness of a real-time indicator is thwarted if it's basically always on.
- "Phone Services" constantly uses (my) location when "Location" is enabled in quick settings
- You also can't revoke location permissions from it (greyed out), which suggests it's required
- HOWEVER - If you disable location altogether in quick settings, "phone services" no longer accesses the location (and the green location indicator goes away), and yet, my phone, messages, etc. still all work.
- If you look at the permissions for the Phone "app", location can be disabled, which is probably also confusing people trying to turn off location for "phone services" (yes, apps and services are different, I know, many don't though)
Aside from being able to just 'mute' phone services location updates, this "required but not actually necessary" location permission for phone services is clear as mud.
Your location was always constantly being accessed in the background. Apps you allowed all the time access to send out a periodic beacon to find out where you are. Apps you gave conditional access to (only when using the app), send out a beacon when you open the app. Because you may have many apps with these permissions, and not all of them ping at the same time, it looks like it's perpetually active. Google maps/find my device needs to know your location at all times. The location services do not use very much battery power, because it's just a momentary ping.
How can this even be considered a breach of trust/privacy when you, yourself agreed to the EULA and TOS when you activated your phone and put it into service, and granted permission for those apps to use location services?
if you doubt you agreed to the EULA/TOS, you can see for yourself in settings/about phone/legal information. You will see this at the bottom:
