Facebook, ever the thoughtful steward of our most intimate personal data, announced today that it’s rolling out a feature change for its Android users: Those with location sharing turned on will no longer have to continually report their whereabouts to the social network at all times.
Unlike iOS, which has the option to only report location data to specific apps when they’re being used, Android is binary. It sends certain apps that information or it doesn’t. And it should be unsurprising that some of Facebook’s features require location services in order to work properly.
“If you enabled this setting, two things happened: you would share your location when you weren’t using the app and you would allow Facebook to store a history of your precise locations,” today’s press release reads. “With this update, you’ll have a dedicated way to choose whether or not to share your location when you aren’t using the app.” How reassuring.
The social network, which is almost synonymous with mishandling user data at this point, will be alerting anyone who turned on location services in the past to let them know being surveilled is now slightly more optional.
Of course, Android users still can continually ping Facebook with their exact position, though there are zero compelling reasons why anyone would want to.