Facebook tracks users even with location permission turned off
The social media platform, Facebook, often lands onto some kind of controversy related to privacy. According to a recent report, the company has been tracking users even when location permission is turned off. Both iOS and Android users have been complaining about this. The company has officially admitted that it does track the locations of its users even is users have turned off the location permission option in the settings.
Almost a year ago, a detailed report was issued by the University of Southern California computer science professor, Aleksandra Korolova. Since then, the US government has been looking for answers from the social media giant. Finally, the company replied with an answer last week. Facebook admitted to two US Senators that it can still track people’s location even if they turned off the feature on their smartphones.
As one would expect, the company justified this move by stating that this actually benefits the users. This helps the users in getting relevant ads and filter fake news. Apart from this, the company also claims that this helps them in identifying the frequent locations of the user and protect them against hacking by detecting logins from unfamiliar locations.
As for how it works, the company has certain algorithms that can figure out the user's location information by analyzing tagged photos and check-ins at locations, such as restaurants and shopping malls.
