How to stop Facebook from knowing your location

While Facebook often says that connecting people is the backbone of the social media platform, however, it has not done much to protect people’s data, instead has fooled them and shared their data to third parties. And one of the main concerns that user nowadays have is whether Facebook knows their location, even if they are not using the app.

Android and iOS are the two-popular mobile operating systems, but their location settings work differently. While Android offers a single on/off switch for Location Services, so you can decide whether to share your precise location with Facebook and other apps. But iOS offers an additional option, so you can share your precise location always, only when the app is in use, or never.

And to give users more control over their location, Facebook has updated its location controls on Android.

Here’s how you can change your location permission on iOS.

Go to Settings and Privacy on the Facebook app and then tap on Settings. Click on the Location option at the Privacy Tab. Tap on Location and then select your preferred setting. If you want minimum tracking go with the ‘Don’t allow.’ Alternatively, you can give permission to access your location ‘Only while using the app.’

If you turn off the Location History, Facebook doesn’t keep a record of places you’ve visited.

For Android.

Go to Settings and Privacy and tap on Settings. Drop-down to the Privacy section and tap on the Location option. Tap to turn off location tracking.

The company has also announced a new background location control on Facebook for Android so people can choose if they want us to collect location information when they’re not using the app. For example, when people choose to use Nearby Friends, a feature that lets friends share their locations with each other, they give Facebook permission to access their location even when they’re not using the app.

Earlier, people using these features were asked to enable Location History. If you enabled this setting, two things happened: you would share your location when you weren’t using the app and you would allow Facebook to store a history of your precise locations. With this update, you’ll have a dedicated way to choose whether or not to share your location when you aren’t using the app.

For people who previously chose to turn their Location History setting “on,” the new background location setting is “on.” For people who had turned Location History “off” – or never turned it on in the first place – the new background location setting is “off.”

‘We’re alerting everyone using the Facebook app on an Android device who chose to turn on Location History in the past, letting them know about the new control, and asking them to take a moment to check that their settings are right for them. If you’ve never turned on Location History, you don’t have to do anything. We won’t turn either of these settings on unless you specifically tell us to,’ Facebook said in a statement.