I’m currently traveling in Europe and I don’t have roaming on my cellphone, but somehow Google maps manage to know where I have been as soon as I connect to the hotel wi-fi.
In: Technology
GPS doesn’t require an internet connection. GPS units have existed long before smartphones, mobile data, etc. Your phone can still track your position while offline, and then send it to Google when you get back online.
Most modern phones have GPS built-in. This does not require a data connection to show location, but the wifi you connect to also has location data associated with it.
Every WiFi hot-spot has a location associated with it. You can get location data even with GPS turned off. That’s why your phone sometimes asks to turn on WiFi to improve location accuracy
Two ways:
1. Your phone doesn’t need to connect to a WiFi network to know that it is close by. Your phone always listens for networks and uses them to determine where it is. Your phone can do this even when WiFi is turned off.
2. Your phone probably has built in GPS which it uses to determine where it is.
GPS by itself doesn’t use data, so it’s possible to log that data then when you connect back to a data connection they can read that data and line it up with a map to see where you’ve been.
Navigation though typically uses data (and can be avoided by downloading the area to use offline).
There’s actually a video from JRE in which Snowden explains ways in which this can occur through telecoms towers etc
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