Facebook is using your phone’s location to suggest new friends

“Thanks to tracking the location of users’ smartphones, the social network may suggest you friend people you’ve shared a Global Positioning System data point with, meaning your friend suggestions could include someone whose face you know, but whose name you didn’t until Facebook offered it up to you”, writes Kashmir Hill at Fusion.

When questioned, Facebook told Fusion that location is “one of the factors we use to suggest people you may know”. But it explained that it doesn’t rely on location data when compiling “People you may know”. In other words, Facebook reportedly examined location data to determine which of its users were physically near each other – no matter the circumstances – and then suggested they become friends. “People You May Know are people on Facebook that you might know”, the spokesperson said”.

This doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, since Facebook relies on user location data for a number of features.

The section is usually a trove of high school acquaintances and a random assortment of colleagues with whom you have mutual friends, but Facebook also suggests friends with whom your common link may be unclear. The social media giant, however, says detecting the location is only a part of how suggesting friends to a user.

Facebook has been looking to do away with that, according to news site Fusion, which reported that the company has already exposed a couple of concerned parents and identified them following a hook-up at an anonymous help session.

Turning your location off does, however, mean you’ll no longer be prompted to share with your friends list every time you go for a burger at Five Guys, because it won’t know where you are anymore. But this kind of friend-matching could also be unsafe, such as in the above example where both parties wished to remain anonymous to the other gathering attendees.

This is one of the real dangers of handing over your data to companies in exchange for free services: you don’t know how it might end up being used, and the consequences may not be immediately apparent.

Every so often, Facebook does something that sets off the alarm of privacy advocates-perhaps it’s inevitable when you’re the largest social network on the planet with over 1.65 billion users. All you have to do is turn off location access for the Facebook app in your phone’s privacy settings.