Location gets leaked on reddit on completely different profile.

NewGrapher77 Can sim carrier give out the data to the app or something?

As documented, the country code of the cellular network in use is available to apps, as a standard Android feature.

NewGrapher77 so would it help if I put my phone in airplane mode or would I have to remove the sim entirely?

Sorry -- I don't know.

Honestly, I am not a giant Reddit user, so I wouldn't install their app. Trying to evade bans by large online web communities is a game of cat and mouse, and they have a lot of resources.

Spoofing country code is a planned feature but not available yet. There's no leak happening, this is simply how things work and part of the reason it works that way is to comply with regulations. Apps can't comply with regulations without knowing the regulation region which is a major part of why this exists. As an example, many Camera apps use it to force sounds in certain regions which isn't something we do in our own Camera app. There are multiple ways it's provided to apps and we have to identify all of them before we can even begin making a feature to support spoofing it.

GrapheneOS Thank you for the helpful explanation.

If a SIM/eSIM card is not currently on the phone, can apps see the country of the last used SIM/eSIM card?

If no SIM/eSIM card was ever inserted/installed on the phone, can apps see any country, e.g. where a phone was purchased?

NewGrapher77 I'm new to all this and assume most of the questions have already been answered. Where can I go and read about this?

https://grapheneos.org/features
https://grapheneos.org/usage
https://grapheneos.org/faq

de0u is this also standard in ios? The only way to stop this is to not insert a sim card on the phone correct or always remain in airplane mode? What happens if you turn airplane mode on and off? Does your country code remain available to apps when airplane mode is turned back on?

locked is this also standard in ios?

I don't know.

locked The only way to stop this is to not insert a sim card on the phone correct or always remain in airplane mode?

Again, I don't know. I don't have a use case for concealing my physical country location or characteristics of my SIM card from privacy-invasive apps on my phone because I don't have privacy-invasive apps on my phone. The question of whether SIM characteristics are available in airplane mode is interesting, but I don't know.

I can test a few scenarios re: SIM card country code and report back...

I did a few tests:

Phone that never had a SIM/eSIM: country not detected

Phone that had a SIM before but now doesn't have one: country not detected

Phone with a SIM card, airplane mode on: country detected

Phone with a SIM card, airplane mode off: country detected

So it looks like only the current SIM is used and airplane mode doesn't have any effect on country detection.

There is a shizuku plugin that lets you change the country code. Don't remember the name but if you google how to unlock pixel temperature unlock in any country it should come up

NewGrapher77

redfoxjumper
Use of shizuku is not recommended. Enabling any adb connection opens up a big security hole. Providing apps on a device access to adb has further troubling security implications.
Theres numerous things that can be changed via adb which have a huge impact. Its also possible to break the OS in unexpected ways which can then be difficult to debug.