Every app installed on your smartphone with permission to access location service “can” continually collect your real-time location secretly, even in the background when you do not use them.
Do you know? — Installing the Facebook app on your Android and iOS smartphones automatically give the social media company your rightful consent to collect the history of your precise location.
When talking about iOS, Apple offers its users more control over such situations at device level where users don’t want to completely stop an app from using location, allowing them to choose if an app can also access location data in the background or not.
However, people using Facebook on Android have an all-or-nothing option when it comes to location sharing, which means either they have to grant Facebook full access to their location data or completely prevent the social network from seeing your location at all, without any option for accessing your location data only when the app is open.
How to Stop Facebook From Tracking You When Not in Use
- Open the Facebook app on your Android smartphone
- Go to the Settings menu on the top right corner (looks like this ☰)
- Tap on Settings & Privacy
- Choose Privacy Shortcuts
- Select Manage your location settings
- Now, toggle “Background Location” to OFF
iOS users need not worry about such features, as Apple already offers iPhone users an option to block an app from using their location in the background when the app is not open.
If you are an iPhone user and have not already stop Facebook—or any other app—from tracking your location in the background, you can follow these simple steps:
- Go to Settings
- Select Privacy
- Choose “Location Services”
- If you want to completely stop all apps from tracking you, turn Location Services off. If you want to limit this setting depending on every app, tap each app and choose “Never” or “While Using.
Make sure apps that don’t require your location, like most games, photo sharing apps and editors, are set to “Never.”
Meanwhile, Facebook is also sending out alerts to both Android and iOS users, asking them to review their location settings.
