Without a doubt, there are benefits and advantages to allowing apps and services to use your location. For example, if you’re searching for something on Google, it helps if Google knows where you are so that it can easily return results that are local and potentially more relevant to you.
This is especially true if you need to use a maps app and it needs your location to help chart out a route for your commute. However, there are times when apps and services can continue tracking our location while not in use, such as Facebook’s mobile app. If you’re not comfortable with Facebook constantly knowing your location all the time, then here’s how you can go about disabling background location tracking.
How To Stop Facebook Location Tracking (iOS)
- Tap the menu icon location to the bottom right corner of the screen
- Scroll down to Settings and Privacy and tap on it
- Tap Settings
- Scroll down and look for the Privacy tab and tap Location
- Tap Location Services, this will bring up the iOS Settings app
- Select “Never” if you don’t want Facebook to ever track your location
- Alternatively you can make it so that Facebook will always have to ask your permission when it needs your location, or you can set it so that it will only use your location while you use the app.
How To Stop Facebook Location Tracking (Android)
- Tap the menu icon location to the top right corner of the screen
- Scroll down to Settings and Privacy and tap on it
- Tap Settings
- Scroll down and look for the Privacy tab and tap Location
- Tap Location Access
- Tap the toggle on Background Location to turn off background location tracking
Note that while this will help protect your privacy, disabling location tracking could have an impact on how certain features and services within Facebook works. This will vary depending on how you use the app, so that’s something you might want to consider before disabling it entirely.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Apps, Facebook, iOS and Privacy.