Just for curiosity: did you mean that soldiers do have smartphones with them while on duty? If I were an officer I never accept personal proprietary devices with computing and communication abilities, it's simply absurd and crazy imagining soldiers on duty tracked by private companies just because they have a macro-spay in their pocket...
There have been many cases of soldiers being tracked because of phones they were carrying. There was the widely publicized case of Strava revealing where some soldiers were stationed, and recently in Ukraine people noticed that Google Maps was showing "traffic jams" where Russian convoys were massing.
Militaries should probably prohibit personal smartphones completely. But I imagine such a prohibition would be a pretty big hit to morale and would also be very difficult to enforce, especially for non-combat areas where soldiers might not see the point.
We could also look into legislation where we finally make companies implement an easy private mode, where any data sharing is not permitted. Mobile apps behave far worse than desktop apps, although now that people notice they get away with it, the phenomenon also spreads on other systems.
I know someone that works in federal systems in a secure area, and you cannot take anything into the secure facility other than your physical being and the clothes you are wearing. Not even a wind up Timex watch. They have lockers outside the secure area where you deposit all your personal effects before entering the secured area. Everything goes into the locker. So it is a little odd that deployed troops are allowed to carry connected devices, other than military issued.
IIRC they were explicitly banned from Iraq after that website emerged where soldiers were competing with the most gory and cruel pictures of casualties, and which disapeared when the more manageable abu graib story stole the show (anyone remember that website btw?)
