Facebook App Lets Android Users Block Location Data
Facebook is updating the location controls on Android to give users more choice over how the company collects location information and how it stores it.
A new background location control on Facebook for Android lets you choose if you want Facebook to collect location information when you are not using the app. For example, when you 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.
Until today, 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.”
For people who use Facebook for iOS, nothing is changing, since the iOS OS already offers an additional option, so you can share your precise location always, only when the app is in use, or never.