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Technology

Facebook explains location data with iOS 13, Android 10

San Francisco, Sep 10

As Apple sets to release iOS 13 to the public later this month, Facebook has described how iOS 13 and the newly-released Android 10 affects its access to your location data and how you can view and manage your location.

The newest version of Android, called Android 10, gives people more visibility into and control over when apps can access their device's precise location while the new version of iOS, called iOS 13, will send people reminders about which apps can access their precise location information when they're not using an app and how many times each app has accessed it.

If you decide to update to Android 10, you'll have the option to allow individual apps to access your precise location, either while you're using the app or when you're not.

"To address this issue, Facebook will continue to respect your most restrictive settings choice. For example, if your device location setting is set to 'all of the time,' but your Facebook background location setting is off, we won't collect your precise location information when you're not using the Facebook app," Paul McDonald, Engineering Director, Location Platform at Facebook, said in a statement on Monday.

"We'll also begin to phase out the Facebook background location setting on Android 10 by reminding people to check their device's location settings to make sure what they've chosen is right for them," he added.

Facebook explained that ahead of the release of iOS 13, it will "continue to make it easier" for users to control their location settings.

On iOS devices, users currently have three options to share their precise location with an app: always, only when the app is in use or never.

"If you decide to update to iOS 13, you will see an additional option called 'allow once,' which lets an app access your device's precise location information only once," said Facebook.

If you are using iOS 13, you will begin to receive notifications about when an app is using your precise location in the background and how many times an app has accessed that information.

The notification will also include a map of the location data an app has received and an explanation of why the app uses that type of location information.

"You're in control of who sees your location on Facebook. You can control whether your device shares precise location information with Facebook via Location Services, a setting on your phone or tablet," McDonald noted.