Instagram Defends Sharing Your Location Data With Followers

Someone can now figure out “your exact location on Instagram” thanks to an iOS update. It does talk about in a popular Instagram post earlier this week. The user said that specific locations sometimes do find with the help of location tags, not just “locations.” Many better engage to this by turning off location services in their device’s settings.

In a later Twitter conversation, Instagram addressed these claims head-on. According to Instagram developers, the Precise Location function is only compatible with geotags and maps. Sharing your location with your followers is completely optional, and unless you say so, it will not become public.

Also, Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, made it clear that Location Services is not a whole new feature, but rather a mobile phone setting. In the phone’s settings, you can quickly turn it off.

It’s important to remember that a message that goes viral on social media isn’t always the best source of information. This is why it’s always a good idea to double-check any claims you see online. The original post just called the feature an “iOS upgrade” without saying what is or isn’t something Instagram did.

The Instagram user has since changed their original post to fix a few factual errors. But the original post stays on the site for “awareness” reasons.

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Turning off your phone’s location services is one way to stop apps from tracking where you are. Apps’ location services sometimes do turn off by removing the permission for that app to use that service. Both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android get this feature, and both keep audit logs of which apps asked for and granted access to your precise location.