Your phone listens to GPS; it doesn’t send your location to the satellites
GPS is a one-way system. Satellites continuously broadcast signals containing the time and information about their orbits. Your phone receives those signals and compares their arrival times. Because radio signals travel at a known speed, tiny differences in timing help the phone estimate how far away several satellites are—and calculate its position.
The crucial distinction is that the phone works out its location locally. It does not have to report that location to a GPS satellite to get a fix. The satellites broadcast; the receiver listens.
Finding a position is not the same as loading a map
A GPS fix can be calculated without a cellular or Wi-Fi connection, but that does not mean every navigation feature works offline. The phone still needs map data to show streets, labels, and routes. If those maps are not stored on the device, the app may need an internet connection to download them. Live traffic, online searches, and some route updates also rely on network service.
Phones may use Wi-Fi, cellular networks, or assistance data to find a position faster, especially when satellite signals are weak or the phone has just been turned on. Those aids can involve network communication, but they are separate from the basic satellite positioning process.
The privacy distinction
Using satellite positioning alone does not tell the satellites where you are. But an app can still share your location through the internet if it has permission and sends that information to a service. So the surprising part is not that a phone can never transmit your location: it is that GPS itself is a receiver-only signal, while location sharing is a separate choice made by apps and network-connected features.
