Are Mac apps secretly monitoring your location?

If you have a recent Apple Mac and version of OS X, it is possible for apps to work out your current location. They can tell, quite accurately, where in the world you are. This extends right down to the street and even the building you are currently in, using your Mac.

There is no need to panic though because this is not being done surreptitiously and it is all above board. However, you do need to check what apps are accessing your location and ask yourself whether you want to allow them to have access to this information.

Go to the Apple menu in the menu bar and select System Preferences. Click Security & Privacy and select Location Services in the list on the left. Click the padlock at the bottom of the window and enter your administrator password or everything will be greyed out.

Now you can see the apps that can determine your location. The three shown here are obvious ones and they have legitimate reasons for wanting to know your location. Is your Mac as clean as this or are there other apps that are accessing your location?

If there is an icon on the right of an application, it indicates that it has accessed your location in the last 24 hours. When apps use location services they should display an arrow in the menu bar, but you might not notice and it may even be possible to suppress this.