I can’t believe I’ve never thought about this and that no one is really talking about it. GPS is a system that everyone uses everyday on there phone and is constantly tracking your location.
Many people here (including myself) use airplane mode to block mobile data signals so that mobile data companies cannot track your location and sell it to data brokers. But airplane mode doesn’t block GPS (I just tested this now on my phone, maybe your phone works differently). Is GPS somehow designed in a way so that it’s private?
AFAIK, the answer to this is yes: GPS is private because the device seeking a lock is not transmitting anything.
Satellites transmit continuous signals which are received by your device. These signals contain data about the position of the satellite and precise timekeeping metadata. Figuring out your location is a matter of comparing time of receipt to the time reported in the signal (and other similar stuff, still all reception based).
This is also why it doesn’t shut off for airplane mode. Nothing is being transmitted by your device to perform the lock; it must only receive enough data.