Facebook app for Android allows you to limit background data collection

The Facebook app for Android adds a new privacy control option that allows users to block the social network application from locating address information without opening the app. Google requires the app to use geolocation information with the user’s permission, but there is no option to determine when the app can use your location.

Facebook emphasizes that this feature has never been used in the past to review Android users’ background location information, unless the user has enabled an option called “location history“, such as reminding you of nearby friends and other features that will use the location feature. But now, Facebook offers more specific options for accessing geographic permissions, and users can approve or deny applications to access your location at any time.

Image: Facebook

Facebook wrote on the blog,

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.”

On iOS, Apple has provided the option to prevent applications from using your location in the background, so no updates are required. Facebook said it will send alerts to iOS and Android users asking users to review their location settings.