Facebook is constantly tracking your location using your iPhone’s GPS, which is why your phone’s battery drains so quickly.
According to security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski, Facebook’s iOS app’s code is sending devices’ location information to Facebook in the background.
“If you move around a lot, you are likely to use more battery but the combination of GPS and networking going on in the background is likely the majority cause of battery drain,” Motherboard.com quoted Zdziarski as saying through email.
However, this should not come as a surprise since Facebook’s in-app location settings clearly state that if you have location history and access set to “always”, then Facebook “will build a history of our precise location, even when you are not using the app”.
“We are not tracking background location if the location setting is off on your device or in the app,” a Facebook spokesperson clarified.
To all those who are worried about their privacy, there is an easy solution – turn your location settings off for Facebook.
“We are not collecting background location on iOS unless Location Access is set to Always on your device and you have enabled Location History in the Facebook app,” the spokesperson reiterated.
