It’s more the fact that MAC addresses have an inherent ability to track you, and many such companion devices you might interact with are in fixed locations.
Modern security conscious Wifi devices address this by randomising MAC addresses - they’re no longer fixed for wifi. You can even configure different wifi networks to have randomised per-connection or per-network (default per-connection), so you can still set up MAC filtering easily.
Bluetooth unfortunately requires fixed MAC addresses as a core part of its pairing functionality. What’s more many connections can require you to provide bluetooth contact data - the same data used for covid contact tracing - eg Ford’s implementation of Android Auto among others.
So your car might not only be tracking you with its internal GPS and cellular 4G connection, it also wants to know wherever you go with your phone, based on the Bluetooth LE devices you ping.
As such you should turn your bluetooth off whenever you’re not using it.
Yeah with that they’re likely talking about apps spying on you. That isn’t really a phone thing, but pinning down exactly which apps do it is hard. Almost certainly it’s Facebook apps (especially the hidden system apps they get manufacturers to install), wouldn’t be surprised if reddit’s app does some of that as well.
Personally, I’ve not had that problem in years, but I run custom ROMs without gapps, and generally try to stick with FOSS apps. However it definitely is a thing where you have a conversation about something around your phone and then soon after see ads for that thing.
It’s more the fact that MAC addresses have an inherent ability to track you, and many such companion devices you might interact with are in fixed locations.
Modern security conscious Wifi devices address this by randomising MAC addresses - they’re no longer fixed for wifi. You can even configure different wifi networks to have randomised per-connection or per-network (default per-connection), so you can still set up MAC filtering easily.
Bluetooth unfortunately requires fixed MAC addresses as a core part of its pairing functionality. What’s more many connections can require you to provide bluetooth contact data - the same data used for covid contact tracing - eg Ford’s implementation of Android Auto among others.
So your car might not only be tracking you with its internal GPS and cellular 4G connection, it also wants to know wherever you go with your phone, based on the Bluetooth LE devices you ping.
As such you should turn your bluetooth off whenever you’re not using it.
Yeah okay, but MAC tracking is something else than a device using camera or microphone in the background without your explicit permission
Yeah with that they’re likely talking about apps spying on you. That isn’t really a phone thing, but pinning down exactly which apps do it is hard. Almost certainly it’s Facebook apps (especially the hidden system apps they get manufacturers to install), wouldn’t be surprised if reddit’s app does some of that as well.
Personally, I’ve not had that problem in years, but I run custom ROMs without gapps, and generally try to stick with FOSS apps. However it definitely is a thing where you have a conversation about something around your phone and then soon after see ads for that thing.