Reminder: Facebook Messenger Shares Your Location With Every Message

Reminder: Facebook Messenger Shares Your Location With Every Message

You’re probably aware that Facebook collects a lot of information about you, and if you’re using the mobile Messenger app, that includes your location data as well. A new Chrome extension called Marauders Map lets anyone you’ve sent a message see that location information all at once.

By default, the mobile Messenger app logs your location in every message (you can tell if it’s on if the GPS icon next to the text box is blue). Even if you’re not actively choosing to send your location, it’s embedded in the message itself. Open up the Messenger app right now and tap on a message from someone else. There’s a good chance you’ll get a map with the location they send that message from. As the creator of the Marauders Map extension points out, the extension allows you to see all that collected information at once to make it easy to track everywhere they have been. Thankfully, it’s easy to turn off this creepy feature:

On Android:

  1. Tap the menu icon > Settings > Location Services

  2. Uncheck the box that enables location services

On iOS:

  1. Head into Settings > Location Services
  2. Fine Facebook Messenger on the list and set the location option to off

That should prevent Messenger from sending your location with future messages, but won’t delete old location info, so keep that in mind. If someone used the extension mentioned above, they’d still be able to track your previous locations pretty easily.


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