How to tell what is using the GPS service on Android

Phone: HTC One M8 (ATT, not rooted)
Android: KitKat


I'm trying to determine what is triggering GPS on my phone. I have noticed the icon a lot more often than usual and it is draining my battery much quicker. I have allowed Google services to track my phone, but I do not allow much else. Under Settings->Location, Only location services is "Google Location Reporting" and the only recent location requests are "Google App Low Battery Use" and "Google Play services Low Battery Use". Force stopping any of those does not make the behavior stop. Rebooting the phone does not make the behavior stop. I have watched the phone: GPS triggers 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off, even while no apps are running. I have never seen the GPS turn on before in the past year, except when I was running a map application.

This all started last weekend. I have not updated any apps from Google Play Store in over a month. I do not allow the phone to install updates automatically, only alert me if there are updates. I have not downloaded any system updates in over a month (there aren't any anyways). I have not changed any settings on the phone, at least none that I am aware of.

The ONLY thing that has changed recenetly was that I was ordering from Amazon, and they offered to install the mobile app. This was last weekend. To install the app, you must enable the security setting that says "allow installation of apps from unknown sources." I normally do NOT mess with this, as I like my phone as fast and barebones as possible. The GPS started triggering the very next day.

I decided to disable the setting the next day and delete the Amazon app (deleted its cache too just as a precaution) because it was a heck of a coincidence. However, the problem remained.

I'm not sure what's going on. I would like to blame the Amazon app as the source of the problem, but we all know in the world of computing things can be more complicated. While the security setting remain changed for half a day, I could have browsed some other website and that gave me the issue. I just don't know. Coincidentally, I have also been receiving a bunch of spam text messages since this started, but I do not know if its related.

Can anyone help me fix this? Did I get some piece of malware? What happened?

Check Settings->Location, it should have a list of recent GPS location requests and how much battery usage each program is taking up.

Quix said:

Check Settings->Location, it should have a list of recent GPS location requests and how much battery usage each program is taking up.

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Seriously? Apparently you didn't read my post. 4th sentence. I already mentioned this.

It doesn't explain what's going on with my phone since those have been on since I bought it, yet the icon is just now popping up.

CaptNumbNutz said:

Seriously? Apparently you didn't read my post. 4th sentence. I already mentioned this.

It doesn't explain what's going on with my phone since those have been on since I bought it, yet the icon is just now popping up.

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Lighten up Frances. Lol.

I noticed the GPS icon popping up for no reason recently. After some searching, I discovered it was the Yelp app. Yelp was checking my location so it could put restaurant suggestions on my lock screen. I uninstalled the app and all is well.

I don't have this problem with the Amazon app.

I don't think there's a way to get it to display any info for an app using GPS with the word NSA on it