Advanced privacy keeps fake location with advanced privacy off
- /e/ version:1.2
- Device model(s): Fairphone 3+
- Device rooted: yes
Summary
The advanced privacy feature seems to fake the location even when off. Sometimes this happens spontaneously while using navigation (magic earth).
The problem
Steps to reproduce
On my FairPhone3+: turn advanced privacy on from the widget on the homescreen. Then turn it off.
What is the current behavior?
Location is shown as Bagong Pagasa, navigation uses this location even with advanced privacy off. This also sometimes spontaneously happens if actual location was selected with advanced privacy on.
Rebooting the phone seems to fix the problem most of the time, but while navigating with the phone the location sometimes spontaneously shifts back to Bagong Pagasa while driving.
Clearing the cache fixes the issue.
What is the expected correct behavior?
Location is set to user's current location when Advanced Privacy's fake location is turned off without needing any other action from the user's side.
Technical informations
Relevant logs (adb logcat
)
Relevant screenshots
Solutions
Workaround
Reboot the phone. The problem will go away for a while but will return as soon as advanced privacy has been on, or sometimes spontaneously. In version 1.1. this seemed to fix the issue, in version 1.2. the problem persists even after reboot with privacy feature off. Navigation is now impossible.
After a couple of days experimenting, I noticed that sometimes when you turn advanced privacy on or off (either seem to work sometimes) the real location becomes visible. This means that when location is incorrect with advanced privacy OFF and you turn it ON, the real location may become visible. If location is incorrect with advanced privacy ON and you turn it OFF, the real location may become visible.
Possible fixes
From the behavior it seems that advanced privacy stays on, even when the switch is set to off, so maybe the problem can be fixed there.