The Sneaky Way Facebook is Tracking your Location — And What You Can Do About It
You may remember just recently when Apple very publicly went after apps like Facebook over their not-so-transparent use of user information with an iOS update that will allow Apple owners to see how their data is being handled. It has since re-ignited a long standing feud between the two companies over privacy and user data, with Facebook jumping on the offensive, taking out a massive ad campaign defending their policies in the name of “standing up… for small business everywhere.”
Social media is an undeniably powerful tool. It allows users to stay connected with friends, family, and communities all around the world. However, this access comes at a significant cost to your privacy. For platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the social media craze is serving up an all-you-can-eat buffet of user data and information, which, if you dig around deep enough in their privacy policies, you will see, they can do pretty much whatever they want with. But wait, you might say, this isn’t new information. You’ve already heard about how Facebook is tracking your location data, so you simply turned off tracking access (Facebook Profile → Settings and Privacy → Settings → Location → Toggle off). Done, right? Wrong.
Facebook is a $520 billion dollar company whose primary, really only, source of revenue is paid advertising. In order to keep that revenue stream as profitable as possible, it is using all the juicy data it has harvested from users to sell advertisers targeted access to you on its platform. But what does all this mean for users? It means that Facebook is not likely to make it that easy to disrupt their very, very, profitable business model.
How Facebook is Still Tracking Your Location. So let’s assume that you are a fairly privacy-conscious social media user; you proactively manage all your settings and provide limited access to your location, contacts, and personal information. Maybe you have even caught up on a newly released feature that allows you to deny Facebook access to your off-Facebook activity. But you’re not done yet. Facebook can still access important location information through one very effective source, something nearly all users post without a second thought — your pictures.
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) Metadata If you are an iPhone user, you may have noticed that the photos in your albums are displayed by location. Many people may have never even given that feature a second thought, however it is accomplished through GPS location tagging, a default setting in your iPhone settings. You can check this out by clicking on one of your photos and scrolling down, if your GPS location tagging is turned on, you will see a little map appear with the precise location where the photo was taken. This EXIF metadata, including time, date, and location, is in embedded in the photo itself.
Now when you upload that same photo onto Facebook or Instagram, most of the metadata is stripped away, even if someone were to save one of your photos to their library, they would not have access to your location information. However, Facebook doesn’t simply throw away all that delicious metadata. They harvest it and add it to the hoard of other user data they have collected. To be clear, no matter how high your privacy settings are set, if you are using GPS tagging on your iPhone and uploading images to Facebook, you are inadvertently giving them your personal information, which as per some sneaky wording buried in their privacy policy, they are allowed to do with as they please.
You do have options when it comes to protecting your data from this EXIF workaround. You can turn off the GPS tagging settings in your camera’s settings; simple, but then your photos will no longer be organized by location. You can also download an EXIF data remover, annoying but effective, just make sure the app you use is from reputable source. One thing Facebook has never been accused of is being stupid, and we never said their business model wasn’t smart, just that it was sorely lacking in transparency.
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