YOUR PHONE SILENTLY SENDS GPS TO YOUR CARRIER — HERE'S HOW

Summary from the TLDR InfoSec newsletter

Mobile carriers can silently ask modern phones to compute and send exact GPS coordinates using low-level RRLP and LPP protocols, bypassing iOS and Android permission systems entirely. This happens in the baseband processor, which talks directly to cell towers and the GPS chip, so operating system privacy settings, VPNs, and app-level toggles offer no protection. Law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and even data brokers have leveraged this capability for real-time tracking, often in murky legal territory. Apple's new C1 modem and iOS 26 add some visibility and consent controls on the iPhone 16e, but billions of other devices remain always-trackable whenever a SIM is active.