How to stop your smartphone from tracking your moves

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — How much does your smartphone know about you? Have you ever thought about what could happen if that information got into the wrong hands?

These days our phones are practically attached to us, and your smartphone may be tracking your every move.

Every person we stopped at a rest stop along I-95 had no idea what was listed on their smartphone, but with a few quick taps, data security expert Tyler Wildman opened their eyes.

"You recognize any of these locations, Hastings, Palatka, two visits to E. Church street?" asked Wildman. "Any of these look familiar to you?"

"Every single one," said Joe Aldrick.

"It's showing where you've been, and it's right here in your phone," explained Wildman.

Wildman showed Aldrick a map on his iPhone pinpointing the places he frequently goes, how many times he visited each address, and what days and times he was there.

"This is the fist time I've seen this level of detail," said Tyrant Davenport.

He keeps a close eye on what his daughters are doing on their smartphones, but this caught them by surprise.

"Frequent locations. Did you turn that on?" asked Wildman.

Davenport's daughter, Gabrielle, told Wildman she did not turn on the frequent locations feature on her iPhone.

"So it was on by default," Wildman said. "Are you anywhere near Fayetteville, N.C., frequently?"

"Yes. That's my home," said Davenport's daughter. "That's where we live."

If someone lost their phone, whoever found it would have access to their address and be able to look through the phone's history, Wildman added.

All because of one option on smartphones and what's turned on under it.

"It's uploaded instantly say through the cloud straight into the servers to see where their users are at and what they are doing and they claim it is for marketing purposes," Wildman said. "But many things that are for marketing purposes can be exploited in the hands of a hacker or data thief that may want to get a hold of where they are."

"The worst part about it is it defaults to that, so it's not like the person decided they wanted to be tracked. It's that the assumption is they do want to be tracked," Wildman said.

So, what can consumers do to prevent tracking?

You can turn off frequent locations and it will go away and you can also clear the history.

"It's pretty scary when you think about the fact so much information is being tracked, probably the average person is not aware. I wasn't," Davenport said.

To check if your smartphone is tracking you - and you have an iPhone - go to Settings, click on Location Services and you can see which apps are tracking your location. At the bottom under system services, check to see if frequent locations is turned on. You can turn it off and clear your history.

If you want your map to work, keep location services on but just turn off frequent locations.

Also, make sure you have a passcode on your phone to make it harder for some to gain access to your information.