“Check-in” on Facebook is surely a fun feature. But, if enabled, it keeps tracks of all your movements. If you are not comfortable in sharing your every move with Facebook you might want to turn off the feature. In this guide, we are going to show you how to stop Facebook from tracking your location.
Among many useful and fun features, Facebook also allows its users to “check in” from their current location, letting your family and friends know where you currently are and where you have been. You can also use Facebook to let your Facebook friends know your current location by using the Nearby Friends feature.
If you come out of the happiness of sharing your life with your social circle and consider what this means, you will realize that it also means Facebook is keeping tabs on your every move. And on top of that, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that your Facebook location data is being used for more than just letting you get in touch with your friends.
If you do not feel comfortable sharing your movements with a bunch of marketing folks, you can prevent Facebook from doing that by turning location tracking off.
How to Turn Off Facebook Location on iPhone and iPad
If you have not ever used the Facebook Check-in feature or want to completely disable the location tracking in Facebook, the easier route to do that is to turn off location tracking from Facebook app on your iPhone and iPad.
- Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Go to Privacy.
- Tap Location Services.
- Tap on the Facebook app.
- Finally, tap on Never.
This will terminate Facebook’s location tracking access. It won’t be able to store your location history while you use the Facebook app and won’t be able to let your nearby friends your current location. As far as location tracking is concerned, Facebook won’t have any location data if you follow the steps mentioned above.
How to stop facebook from keeping your location history
Maybe you would not like to turn off the Facebook location tracking completely because, maybe, you like to use check-in and Friends Nearby features of Facebook and don’t mind sharing your location data with the company in exchange for these features. You can do that by leaving the location tracking on (or set it to Only While Using App) and disable the location history part. The location history is one of the favorite data of data miners to get the most useful information from/about you.
To stop Facebook from keeping your location history:
- Launch the Facebook app.
- At the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap on the More tab (three lines).
- Scroll down and tap Settings.
- Select Account Settings.
- Tap Location.
- Turn the Location History toggle to off state.
How to delete your existing location history from Facebook on iPhone and iPad
If the location history has ever been enabled on your iOS device, Facebook keeps the history with itself. Facebooks lets you delete your location history so that it is no longer stored with the company. Here is how to do that:
- Launch the Facebook app on your iOS device.
- At the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap on the More tab.
- Scroll down and tap Settings.
- Go to Activity Log.
- Tap Filter.
- Tap Location History.
- Tap Clear Location History.
- Tap Confirm.
This should clear all your location history that Facebook has. If you opt to keep the Facebook location tracking on, you will probably want to delete the location history every once in a while.
How to disable location sharing with nearby friends on Facebook on iPhone and iPad
If you want to keep the check-in feature of Facebook location tracking, but don’t want to let your friends know that you are nearby, Facebook allows you to disable just this feature. This will only turn off the nearby friends feature, while still allowing Facebook to track your location and keep the history if you have not disabled that.
- Launch the Facebook app for iPad or iPhone.
- At the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap on the More tab.
- Scroll down and tap Settings.
- Select Account Settings.
- Tap Location.
- Go to Nearby Friends and turn off the Nearby Friends toggle to off state.
The Facebook location tracking related questions?
That’s everything you need to know about Facebook location tracking feature. If I missed something or you have a question related to Facebook’s location tracking features, let me know in the comments section below and I’ll come back fully prepared.