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A lot of apps rely on your location for certain features, such as making music recommendations, activity recommendations, or if you’re using a navigation app, it will use your location to determine the distance to another location.
In some cases, it can be useful and even necessary, but other times, it might simply allow an app to collect your location data without having any real benefit.
Now recently, there have been an influx of posts about Instagram’s use of your “precise location” where many of these posts (wrongfully) claim that it can be abused to give people your exact location, leading to break-ins, robberies, and so on. Instagram has since refuted those claims, but even then, it is a reminder that apps like Instagram do have access to your location, especially if you granted it permission and forgot about it.
If you’re concerned about this and want to turn off location services for Instagram, then here’s what you need to do.
Turn off Precise Location for Instagram
iPhone
- Launch your iPhone’s Settings
- Tap on Privacy
- Tap Location Services
- Scroll down and look for Instagram and select it
- Tap on “Never” or “While Using the App” and make sure the “Precise Location” toggle has been turned off
Android
While Precise Location is an iOS feature, Android users who are similarly concerned about the app tracking their location can also disable it a different way.
- Launch the Settings app on Android
- Tap on Location
- Tap on Google Location Accuracy
- Tap on “Improve Location Accuracy” to toggle it off
Keep in mind that while disabling your location might better protect your privacy, there might be certain features that will no longer work or will not work properly with the feature disabled. Ultimately it’s up to you to decide if these are features you use often and if it might be worth sacrificing them to protect your privacy, but it’s something to keep in mind all the same.
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