Matt KleinMatt Klein
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Matt Klein has nearly two decades of technical writing experience. He’s covered Windows, Android, macOS, Microsoft Office, and everything in between. He’s even written a book, The How-To Geek Guide to Windows 8. Read more.
It seems like everyone is tracking our location now. Not surprisingly, Facebook Messenger can also transmit a significant amount of information on your location activity. If you use Messenger, here’s how to make sure it’s not reporting your location to others.
We know Google does it, and if you use an Apple device, you have to enable location tracking for certain features and apps to work correctly. Basically, any portable device or modern operating system has location-oriented features baked into it. Even your web browser utilizes your location to deliver results specific to where you’re residing.
Facebook Messenger has always had location reporting built into it, but as it turns out, this could be (and probably is) a boon for stalkers and creeps because they can build a very detailed accounting of everywhere you go (as long as you chat on Messenger throughout the day).
To prove this point, one enterprising Facebook intern created a Marauder’s Map, which lets anyone generate an actual map pinpointing everywhere a Messenger user goes.
While the Marauder’s Map is now gone, the lesson is not, and Facebook was quick to issue an update that turns the location feature off by default. That said, if you do have it enabled, either by accident or you simply don’t know better, here are detailed instructions on exactly how to disable it.
Checking Whether Messenger’s Location Reporting is Enabled
Like we said, from now on Messenger’s location feature should be disabled by default when you install it. This is less of a concern with the iOS version of the app simply because of the way iOS handles permissions. With the Android version, however, you have to be a little more attentive. Still, we’ll cover both versions so you know what it is involved.
On Android, you can tell when the location service is on because there will be an icon in your chat windows. If the icon is blue, it means that the location option is enabled and active.
If you see the icon but it is grayed out, it means that location is enabled but inactive, but only for that particular chat.
Tapping the icon lets you toggle location on and off manually, but it will always be active for each new Messenger conversation.
If location is enabled for Messenger on your iPhone or iPad, when you tap the pin icon along the bottom, it will paste a map of your current location into your chat. Thus, instead of reporting your location every time you send a message to your conversation partner, they can see where you are but only if you choose to reveal that information.
Trust us, Messenger’s ability to pinpoint our location is frighteningly accurate.
If location is disabled in the iOS Messenger app, you’ll see the following message, which will whisk you to the settings to turn it on if you wish.
As we inferred earlier, it is more difficult to turn on location tracking on your iPhone or iPad because of this warning dialog.
Turning Location Off
To turn off the location feature in the Android app, you need to tap the settings gear at the top of the app’s screen, then scroll down and tap off “Location”.
iOS handles location permissions on the OS level, meaning you have to allow Messenger to use your location in the system settings. When you access these settings on your iPhone or iPad, the choices will be to turn it off completely or allow it while using the app.
If you use Messenger, then we recommend you check out how it is set up before starting any new chats. It’s still very much possible that you’re using an older version that doesn’t automatically disable the location feature if you use Android.
This is hardly the first Facebook-related annoyance we’ve talked about. We’ve always disliked all those game requests and birthday notifications, but this is actually something that could prove harmful to an unaware user.
While it’s certainly encouraging that Facebook actually took steps to protect user privacy from potentially invasive or even dangerous tracking activity, that it took them so long is still unfortunate. Hopefully current Messenger users will pay attention to and keep up on their app updates. At the very least, if you’re reading this, you now know what to do.
Please let us know if you have any questions or comments by sharing your feedback with us in our discussion forum.
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Matt Klein
Matt Klein has nearly two decades of technical writing experience. He’s covered Windows, Android, macOS, Microsoft Office, and everything in between. He’s even written a book, The How-To Geek Guide to Windows 8.
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No, the Off-Facebook Activity tracking rumor is not a hoax. Here’s how to keep the social media platform from tracking your web browsing.
The Off-Facebook Activity tool addresses privacy concerns.
If you haven’t been using the privacy feature Facebook introduced last year, now’s the time to start. It’s called Off-Facebook Activity and it lets you see and control data that apps and websites share with the platform — and monitor the kind of information third-party apps can access.
With the privacy feature, you can clear the history of apps and websites that have shared your data. You can also turn off future Off-Facebook activity, which tells Facebook to disconnect any information the company has shared from your account. Or you can selectively choose which companies you want to stop sharing your activity and it’ll stop showing you those targeted ads.
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Here’s how to get a better grip on your Facebook privacy.
The Facebook tool allows you to control which sites share your information.
How to manage what sites share with Facebook using the Off-Facebook Activity tool
Using Facebook’s business tools, you can see what information apps and websites have sent to the company. From there, you can clear the information from your account and turn off future “off-Facebook activity” from your account. You’ll be able to control this for all apps and websites so they’ll no longer be able to share your search activity with Facebook.
To get started, go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Your Facebook Information > Off-Facebook Activity. From there, you can manage your Off-Facebook Activity, clear all history and turn off any future activity to your account.
What happens when you turn off activity managed by Off-Facebook
Once you clear the activity managed by the tool, Facebook will remove your identifying information that the apps and websites share. That means Facebook won’t know which websites you visited or what you looked at, so you won’t see any targeted ads from those sites.
Turn off your activity.
What else you can do to improve your privacy on Facebook
If you’d like to control which ads you see (or don’t) on Facebook, go to your Settings on your phone or desktop and select Ad Preferences.
Under Advertisers and Businesses, you can see which advertisers have run ads using a list uploaded to Facebook containing your information. By selecting a company and then choosing Don’t Allow, you won’t see ads from advertisers when they use a list from that company.
You can also go to Ad Settings and turn off ads based on data from partners, ads based on your activity on Facebook Company Products that you see elsewhere and ads that include your social actions. However, doing this won’t delete any data and you’ll still see the same number of ads as before. The off-Facebook activity feature is the best way to remove your data.
If you’re an iPhone user and have upgraded to iOS 14.5 , a new feature called App Tracking Transparency requires you to give permission to apps including Facebook before they can use your data for targeted ads. (Here’s how to use App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5 .)
If you’ve ever felt like Facebook always knows where you’ve been in spite of adjusting settings in its mobile apps to stop the app from accessing your location, then you’re not the only one. Facebook does indeed track your location when you’re using its apps, and it’s all done to serve targeted ads to users. Even without access to your accurate location data from the smartphone, Facebook uses information from your browsing habits, including IP address, Wi-Fi network, and Bluetooth to pinpoint your whereabouts and place relevant ads inside its apps. And all of this happens as Facebook continues to give users the impression they can control whether or not they share location data with Facebook.
University of Southern California computer science professor Aleksandra Korolova explained how Facebook does it in great detail on Medium. Even though the Location Services setting was turned to “Never” in the iPhone Facebook app, and Location History was cleared and turned off, Facebook still showed Korolova ads that matched her location.
Moreover, I have noticed that whenever I travel for work or pleasure, Facebook continues to keep track of my location and use it for advertising: a trip to Glacier National Park resulted in an ad for activities in Whitefish, Montana, a trip to Cambridge, MA — in an ad for a business there, and a visit to Herzeliya, Israel — in an ad for a business there.
She says Facebook can’t glean information about her from her other interactions with Facebook or its other apps, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger. Location tracking is turned off for all ads and she doesn’t share photos with location data on Facebook. But the location-related ads keep popping up.
The report explains that Facebook isn’t really forthcoming about its location tracking, nor is it willing to offer users controls that would prevent the social network from using IP addresses or Wi-Fi data to locate users.
Some people may argue that it’s all standard operating procedure for companies that offer online services for “free,” with ads showing in the background of everything you do. And Facebook does need to make money to keep providing its services. Also, many Internet users have no problem with Facebook swiping their location data for ads. But there may be cases where people could abuse this feature, since Facebook allows ad targeting down to a very small geographic area, like a house (as seen in the screenshot above). The professor also offers the following example:
This means anyone in the world can create an ad campaign to reach people who have recently visited a particular location, such as a place of worship or an abortion clinic. And since individuals cannot meaningfully stop Facebook from inferring or using their location for advertising, they also cannot avoid such ads. Imagine opening Facebook during a visit to an abortion clinic to communicate with friends for support in a difficult decision, and instead, seeing an ad campaign for cute baby clothes created by anyone who wants to target women making this difficult decision.
Facebook could change its location-tracking policies to actually give users control over the data they choose to share in the future if it wanted to. Or lawmakers in certain markets may force it to address these issues. But if you’re concerned about Facebook tracking your location, the only thing you can do right now is to remove all Facebook apps from your phone and stop using it altogether. Of course, that’s not necessarily a viable option for specific apps, especially chat apps like WhatsApp and Instagram. The latter already displays ads, while the former is going to deliver advertising to users next year.
Facebook confirmed to Gizmodo that it’s tracking users by collecting IP addresses as well as data from check-ins and other content. And users can’t turn the feature off:
Facebook does not use WiFi data to determine your location for ads if you have Location Services turned off. We do use IP and other information such as check-ins and current city from your profile. We explain this to people, including in our Privacy Basics site and on the About Facebook Ads site.
There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely. We use city and zip level location which we collect from IP addresses and other information such as check-ins and current city from your profile to ensure we are providing people with a good service—from ensuring they see Facebook in the right language, to making sure that they are shown nearby events and ads for businesses that are local to them.
Chris Smith started writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it he was sharing his views on tech stuff with readers around the world. Whenever he’s not writing about gadgets he miserably fails to stay away from them, although he desperately tries. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Looking back past decades, only government and powerful entites can perform location tracking as it requires a series of specizlied equipments and technical skill. Now you can track someone’s location with Facebook Messenger with just a few taps. Facebook is not just an application that transmits a large amount of information, it also can act as a GPS tracker or location tracking service. Knowing someone’s whereabouts can ensure family safety and stay connected. Let’s have a look at how to track someone’s location.
How to track someone’s location using Facebook Messenger?
Facebook Messenger helps facilitate communication as well as give us convenience, but few people are aware of its location tracking feature. If you’re a worried parent, partner or friends who just want to know where someone is, you probably wonder how to track someone’s location with Facebook Messenger. The following part will show you how to do so and even a regular user can locate someone easily.
Way 1. Location sharing
The easiest way is to share location with one another, on condition that you already have Facebook Messenger installed on your phone. It’s useful for those who want to meet up with someone and save time explaining directions. Do note that, location sharing is not available on Messenger Lite and you have to access the full version of Messenger. To track someone’s location on Facebook Messenger, you can follow these steps:
Step 1. Initiate the conversation with your Facebook Messenger friend
Step 2. Tap on the four dots icon at the bottom left of the screen
Step 3. Tap “Location” and select “Share live location”
Step 4. The person can see your current location and they in turn can share location with you
Way 2. Nearby friends
Nearby Friends lets you to see who among your friends are nearby. Users can share current location with friends or family members. To enable this function, location history should be turned on. Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1. Log into Facebook account and tap on hamburger menu
Step 2. Click the “See More” option
Step 3. Select “Nearby friends” from the menu
Step 4. Tap the option to turn it on
Once done, you can see the list of friends who are using this feature. They will be listed by location and you will see their distance between you. Friends or family who are very close to your location will be listed firstly and you can open up a chat with them.
Way 3. Location hashtags and tags
All it takes to track Facebook friend’s location is a few taps or clicks away. You can resort to Facebook’s location tags and hashtags by checking Fcaebook stories. If location tag is available on the latest pictures, you can click the hastag and select “show location”. It will guide you to Google Maps where you can see someone’s location.
It’s one of the best ways to find your friend’s location if they don’t mind sharing location. However, it’s not completely effective as users can post any location that could be totally different from their actual address.
How to turn off Facebook Messenger’s location tracking?
Facebook’s location tracking probably could be a boon for stalker or creeps to pinpoint everywhere you go. This feature is disabled by default, if you do have it enabled, you can simply turn it off. On Android devices, the icon in chat windows can tell you whether the location service is on or off. If the icon is blue, it means that location service is turned on and active. While the icon is grayed out, the location is enabled but inactive, only for that particular chat. Just tap the icon to toggle location off manually.
Is it possible to track someone’s location with phone number through Facebook?
Yes, other than the above methods, Facebook allows you to locate someone by simply entering the phone number. All you have to do is enter the phone number on the search bar of Facebook. In case the number is linked with any Facebook account, it will show you associated profile and messages so you can find someone. If the person has not added his number on Facebook, you cannot track his location through this method.
Alternatively, reverse lookup services like Whitepages, Find My Phone let you enter the phone number and find exact location. No techical background is needed when using these services. It shows the location on the map that you can pan around, zoom in and out. If you take the assistance of Find My Phone, you also can check search history and get a satllite view of the location.
Final thoughts
It doesn’t take much effort or time to track someone’s location with Facebook Messenger. The above methods can deliver guaranteed result within a few minutes. You can pinpoint the location of your family members or friends. Or you can enter the phone number on search bar to get associated messages. Check them out and get started!
Find My Phone
Even with the location marker – in the text filed – toggled off in Facebook’s Messenger app for iOS or Android, the app still logs your location data on a map which is constantly uploaded to Facebook’s servers, leaving it open for prying eyes. What if you want to turn off location sharing completely? You can, and we’ll show you how to do just that.
There was a time when location tracking, courtesy of our smartphones, was something to be excited about, but as it stands today this feature has become increasingly intrusive and a major privacy concern – sometimes through fault of our own, but often because key information is kept from us by some app makers, and Facebook Messenger happens to be just one of those.
We recently covered news regarding a Chrome extension called Marauders Map which pretty much proves how Facebook keeps a log of all your location history that it has stored from your messages, even if you think that your location is not being shared at all – recall the location marker bit we mentioned earlier. As I said, most of us have already left a huge footprint of our location history out there, but you have to begin from somewhere and put an end to these evil designs – or schemes, depending what you would like to call them.
The best and most effective way to remove any chances of you ever stumbling into revealing your location through the Messenger app is to simply disable it on the system level for good, well, until you decide to revert back to sharing your travels.
Android
Step 1: To begin, simply launch the Messenger app on your phone or tablet.
Step 2: Hit the ‘Settings’ tab and simply disable the Location settings by tapping on it.
Step 1: To begin, launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad from your home screen.
Step 2: Navigate to Privacy > Location Services.
Step 3: Scroll below to look for the ‘Messenger’ app and tap it.
Step 4: Now, select ‘Never’ as the option and exit the Settings app.
With the location option disabled on both Android and iOS, the Messenger app will not log your location henceforth. This also means that you won’t be able to show off to your friends from where you’re actually sending messages from. But you already knew that didn’t you?
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If your privacy is more important than Facebook knowing exactly where you are at all times, you might want to disable location tracking.
If you’re a Facebook app power user, you might like to take advantage of the Check In feature and other tools that require the use of your device location tracking system. However, for the average user, this setting should be considered an invasion of privacy. Why? Because by regularly allowing the Facebook app to keep tabs on your location, you make it possible for bad actors to precisely track your location. That could, given the wrong person and situation, not end well.
Even though Facebook warns users that the precise location tracking makes for a much more reliable and enjoyable experience, your privacy should be far more important than getting the most out of the Facebook app. If that’s piqued your interest, you’ll probably want to shut down that location tracking option in the Facebook app. But how?
It requires a bit of navigation, but it’s not all too challenging. Let me show you how to disable the location tracking feature.
Disabling location tracking in Facebook
- Open the Facebook app and then tap the menu button in the upper right corner.
- Tap Settings & Privacy and then tap Settings.
- Scroll down and tap Location.
- Tap Location Access and then tap Location Services.
- In the resulting window, tap Deny.
Once you’ve done that, back out of the settings and you can start using the Facebook app without worrying it is tracking your every move. Enjoy a bit more privacy with the social media tool.
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Reclaiming your data in the age of surveillance capitalism.
There are two companies in the world that know more about you than perhaps you know about yourself. Both of which are, of course, Facebook and Google/Alphabet.
In this podcast we focus specifically on Facebook Inc and how to stop its list of services (namely Facebook, Instagram and Messenger) from harvesting your public and private data and behaviours and selling it on to advertisers.
Data collected from what we do online is used against us. There are no benefits to us, the Facebook Inc user, in the surveillance and data harvesting exchange.
The phrase, ‘If the service is free, then you are the product’ is often used to explain why Facebook’s services don’t come with a financial cost but author Shoshana Zuboff explains in her book, Surveillance Capitalism, ‘You are not the product; you are the abandoned carcass.’
In this podcast you’ll learn how to stop Facebook Inc from tracking your every move both on its own platforms and across the web. You’ll learn how to turn off advertising tracking, location tracking, face recognition and more.
Show highlights
2:14 Timeline of Facebook’s data breaching events
5:33 Everything Facebook knows about you
9:46 Why care about your privacy and what Facebook knows about you
12:00 How to stop Facebook tracking you in your ad preference settings
18:20 How to turn off your location so Facebook can’t track where you go
19:19 How to turn off Facebook’s facial recognition
20:17 Turn off the ‘Off-Facebook’ activity
21:15 Unlike Facebook pages
22:15 Using a privacy browser so Facebook can’t track you around the web
24:19 Using a smartphone firewall to stop non-Facebook apps from sending data to Facebook about you
Resources/people/articles mentioned in the podcast
Turn off Facebook ad preferences – facebook.com
Turn off Facebook location settings – facebook.com
Turn off face recognition – facebook.com
Why you need to ditch Google Chrome and use the Brave browser – stedavies.com
Support the show
If you enjoy The New Influence Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following:
One of Facebook’s many features is that you can “check in” from your current location, letting your friends and family know where you are or where you’ve been. You can also use Facebook to let your friends know where you are right now using the Nearby Friends feature.
If you take a moment to consider what this means, you’ll understand that it means Facebook is keeping tabs on your every movement. As The Wall Street Journal recently uncovered, this data is being used for more than just helping you get in touch with your friends.
If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your every move with a bunch of advertisers, you can protect your privacy and disable location tracking.
How to disable location tracking in Facebook on iPhone and iPad
If you want to burn the entire Facebook location tracking ability to the ground. The easiest way to stop it is to disable location tracking for the Facebook app.
- Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap on Privacy.
Tap on Location Services.
Tap on Never.
Facebook will not have any location tracking access, not for storing your location history while you use the app, not to let friends nearby know where you are. It’s total darkness as far as location tracking is concerned.
How to stop Facebook from saving your location history
Maybe you like the check-in and Friends Nearby features of Facebook and don’t mind sharing some of your location data with the company in exchange for those features. You can leave location tracking on (or set it to Only While Using the App) and turn off the history saving part. This is where data miners tend to get the most useful information from you.
- Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap the More tab in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Scroll down and tap Settings.
Turn off the Location History switch.
How to delete your location history from Facebook on iPhone and iPad
If Location History has ever been enabled on your iPhone, that history is stored with Facebook. You can delete your location history so that it’s no longer stored with Facebook.
- Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap the More tab in the bottom right corner of the screen.
- Scroll down and tap Settings.
- Tap Activity Log.
- Tap Filter.
- Tap Location History.
- Tap Clear Location History.
- Tap Confirm.
This deletes all of your stored location histories. If you choose to keep location tracking on in any capacity, you’ll probably want to do this purge every once in a while.
How to stop sharing your location with nearby friends in Facebook on iPhone and iPad
If you like the check-in feature of Facebook’s location tracking, but don’t really want your friends to know that you’re nearby, you can turn off just this feature, while still allowing Facebook to track your location (and store it if you don’t want to disable Location History).
- Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap the More tab in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Scroll down and tap Settings.
Tap Location.
Turn off the Nearby Friends switch.
Any location tracking questions?
Do you have any questions about Facebook’s location tracking features and how to disable them? Let me know and I’ll do some research.
As of Tuesday, you can turn off the collection and sharing of data that sites and apps send to Facebook. You might have had some idea that Facebook was keeping tabs on what you do, but I’m willing to bet you’ll be surprised by the volume of information Facebook has about you. In fact, as I wrote earlier today, even your Ring doorbell app is sharing information with Facebook.
Websites and apps use Facebook’s Pixel and software development kit (SDK) to collect information about your device and your activity, and send that to Facebook. Facebook uses that information to then show you targeted ads.
It’s why people are convinced Facebook must be listening to their conversations since they see ads in their News Feed for the very products or items they were just talking about. Here’s a newsflash: Facebook doesn’t need to listen to your conversations. It already knows so much about you, it can practically read your thoughts.
If you don’t believe me, the “Off-Facebook Activity” tool that Facebook announced back in August is finally available. Go take a look at exactly what Facebook has collected about you. You might be surprised at all of the sites and apps you use on a regular basis who are sharing information about what you do.
Here’s how to find out what sites are sending information to Facebook about you. The “Off-Facebook-Activity” tool isn’t easy to find (though you can click that link to go directly to it). If you want to navigate there, click on the drop-down carrot in the top right of the desktop version of Facebook. Then select “Settings” and “Your Facebook Information.” There you’ll find an option for “Off-Facebook Activity.”
There you’ll find a list of all the sites that are sharing information with Facebook, and you can clear your history (removing this information from your account), turn off tracking for specific sites, or disable this tracking completely. To be clear, if you turn it off, Facebook will still receive information about your activity, it just won’t be associated with your account.
Also, turning off this type of data sharing does mean that you won’t be able to use Facebook to log in to other apps or sites. Never mind that you shouldn’t be using it, for this very reason, but if you are, you’ll be logged out and have to create a new login for those accounts or apps.
I don’t often give Facebook credit for considering the privacy interests of its users, but this is a welcome step in the right direction. The company has often had a hard time balancing its need to know as much as it can about you so that it can monetize that information, with the ability for users to control what information is being collected and tracked. While there are still a lot of changes Facebook will have to make before it can really claim to be a “privacy-protective” platform, this is a good start.
