If your iPhone uses an Apple-designed modem, you can possibly take advantage of a little-known privacy benefit. Devices with an Apple-designed C1 or C1X modem can us a recently-added setting that cuts down on the amount of location data that’s available to mobile networks.
iPhone’s currently equipped with Apple’s C1 or C1X modem, include the iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, iPhone 17e, and M5 iPad Pro. Apple is widely expected to drop the Qualcomm modems (which do not have the Limit Precise Location setting) used in other devices later this year, with the unveiling of the iPhone 18 lineup. The transition will not only offer the above mention privacy benefit, but will also offer speed and efficiency improvements.
Mobile networks have long been able to determine your location by using information from the cellular towers your device connects to. By enabling Limit Precise Location, you restrict some of that data from being sent to the carrier. That means instead of being able to locate you and your device as closely as to a street address, carriers will instead only be able to identify the neighborhood you’re in.
By restricting carriers from using precise location information, you will not impact sigal quality or your experience in using your iPhone, nor will it affect the location data provided to emergency responders. The location data being restricted the location data given to cellular carriers, and it is separate from the location data shared your device shares with apps through Location Services.
While Apple is expected to extend the privacy feature as it releases new devices, carriers will have to implement support. So far, only a limited number of carriers support the feature, but the addition of the feature to the entire iPhone lineup, as well as customer demand, should drive widespread adoption.
Currently, the only US carrier supporting limiting precise location data is Boost Mobile. But EE, BT, and Sky all offer support in the UK, while carriers in Austria, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Thailand have also adopted support. All of these carriers have the setting turned on by default. Users on a physical SIM or eSIM from any carrier in the EU or UK can also manually turn the setting on.
A full list of supported carriers and regions can be found on Apple’s website.
If you do already have a compatible iPhone model and carrier, you can manually toggle the setting on of off by doing the following:
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Open Settings, then tap Cellular.
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Tap Cellular Data Options. If you have more than one phone number under SIMs, tap one of your lines.
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Scroll down to Limit Precise Location.
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Turn the setting on or off.
You might be prompted to restart your device.
