Location Tracking

What location tracking is, who it affects, and what a child should learn — a free entry from the Digital Guardians Threat Dictionary.

Target age range: All ages of minors can be impacted by location tracking risks, but especially pre-teens and teens (approximately 10–18 years) who start carrying personal devices and using apps with location features. Younger children (even as young as 5–9) could be targets of physical tracking devices (like hidden trackers in toys or backpacks) or might carry smartwatches given by parents. Thus, guidance spans from elementary through high school, tailored to each age’s use of technology.

Learning objective: Learn how location tracking can put a child’s safety and privacy at risk and how to protect against it. Parents and children will understand the methods bad actors use to track locations (through apps, social media, or physical devices), recognize warning signs of being tracked, and implement strategies to prevent unwanted location sharing. The objective is to ensure families can enjoy the benefits of location services (like safety and navigation) while minimizing the dangers of exposing a child’s real-time or historical whereabouts. By the end, both parent and child should be able to confidently manage location settings on devices, respond if they suspect someone is tracking them, and maintain healthy boundaries around location sharing.

Threat definition

Location tracking in this context refers to the unauthorized or exploitative monitoring of a child’s physical whereabouts via technology. This can happen in several ways:

Forms of Location Tracking

• Digital Tracking through Apps/Services Many smartphone apps, social networks, and games collect or share location data. If a child shares their live location with friends (e.g., via Snap Map, Life360) or posts geotagged content publicly, that information could fall into the wrong hands. Predators often groom children into revealing their location as part of building trust, or use social engineering to get kids to enable location sharing. In effect, a stranger online could learn where a child lives, goes to school, or hangs out, by exploiting location features. This poses obvious risks: facilitating in-person stalking or abduction, or simply spying on the child’s movements.
• Physical Tracking Devices Small GPS trackers (like Apple AirTag, Tile, or others) can be hidden in a child’s belongings (backpack, jacket, car) without their knowledge. There have been cases of individuals planting AirTags on children or women to follow them secretly. These devices transmit the person’s location to the tracker’s owner. Similarly, “smart” toys or wearables given to a child (a smartwatch with GPS, for instance) can be misused if an unauthorized person gains access to its location data.
• Indirect Location Leakage Even without GPS, an attacker might approximate location via an IP address (from online activities) or glean location from clues in posts (like a photo showing a school name or a mention of an upcoming event at a local venue). So, location tracking isn’t always a deliberate beacon – it can also be piecing together information the child shares.

The threat is that when a child’s real-world location is known to a malicious actor, they are vulnerable to physical harm or intrusion. A predator could attempt to meet them in person, abduct them, or spy on them in real life. At a lesser extreme, even peers (like a bully or an ex-friend) could misuse location info to stalk or harass the child. Therefore, controlling who can track a child’s location is critical to their personal safety and privacy.

The full chapter is in Pillar 3: Device, App & Network Protection and the Complete Edition.