How To Turn Off Instagram Location Map and other Location Tracking

Careless or clueless? Tech often rolls out new features without thinking about safety—and Instagram’s new Location Map is no exception. In this episode, Mandi shares how to:

• Turn off Instagram Location Map on iPhone & Android
  
  
• Adjust location sharing across your apps and devices
  
  
• Protect your digital footprint when posting photos online
  
  

Simple steps, real-life examples, and practical tips to help you stay safe in a digital world.

RESOURCES

EndTab.org

What Meta Says About Their IG Map Sharing

My Story of Being Tracked by a Creep Via AirTag

Connect with Mandi:

• Website: MandiPratt.com (Take the Intuition Quiz!)
• Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared

LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt

Transcript

 Welcome back, brave one. Today we're talking about tech being careless and staying safer in a digital world. So this is a big concern for us. Our phones, our apps, the tech. If you feel frustrated by how careless or clueless tech can be when it comes to safety, you're gonna relate to this episode. By the end of this episode, you'll learn four things.

One, how to check and turn off location, sharing across your devices and apps. Two, how certain features like Instagram's new map sharing can create safety risks. Number three, simple actionable steps to protect yourself and others without being a tech expert. And number four, how to stay aware of digital footprints when posting photos.

And I'm gonna add one more. Number five. My favorite resource on this topic, I'm gonna share that right now 'cause I'm probably gonna forget it at the end. So I've had them on the podcast before. Adam Dodge with end tab, so I believe it's end tab E-N-D-T-A b.org. And they have free trainings and stuff. I will put a link to them in the show notes.

So tech is creating safety headaches. Instagram just released a couple weeks ago, a new feature called Instagram Map, and it's letting users share their real time location with selected friends. On the surface, it's meant to help coordinate meetups, but it's also a perfect tool for stalkers if people don't manage it carefully.

This is similar to air tags, which are tools designed for convenience but misused for tracking, and I've had my own air tag scare before. I've mentioned that in a previous episode, which I'll drop in the show notes. I'm pretty sure it was the air conditioning guy who came to our house. Um, he was able to follow me, um, must've stuck the air tag on my car and see me, you know, go to the store where I go to the store and come back and what time.

And that was really maddening and we never found the air tag, so the police couldn't do anything. So anyway, if you go back and listen to it, you'll hear about that. So we're gonna do step by step actionable advice to turn off the Instagram map and sharing. Um, so luckily in the past I had a good friend whose husband was a cop, and at the time I was going through, I think it's when my former partner, uh, my ex-husband was missing, I believe.

We didn't know. So he was like, just gimme your phone and I'm gonna like take off all the location sharing just to be safer. You know, so he took it and he just like did all these things and just quickly turn that off, turn that off. Go here, go there. And I'm forever grateful because I've never really had an issue with the location sharing things on my phone.

So I wanted to make sure to share that with you because. Um, you know, recently with Instagram making that new feature, I saw a lot of people going on there being like, turn off your Instagram location sharing. But it's much deeper than that. It's share, it's turning off your location services on all of the things on your phone, not just Instagram.

Snapchat has something like that too. So, I mean, I don't use Snapchat, but some people who are listening to this May, so let's just. Turn all device location settings off. So on an iPhone you go to settings and then you go to privacy and security, and then you go to location settings and you adjust it per app.

So you see all the apps listed, Facebook, Instagram, you know, all of 'em, and you wanna turn them off. Um, some of 'em are like, you wanna turn them on while using like. Your maps or something, but um, you know, just try to turn as many as you can off completely. On the Android. You'd go to settings and then location, and then app permission, and then you adjust per app.

So here's a bright idea. If you're not a tech person, don't stress about this. I would recommend just go to your local police station and ask them for guidance. So when their lobby is open, just say. Hey, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to turn off all of my device location settings, and I'm not sure how to do that.

Is there somebody here, like it doesn't have to be an officer, just anybody who knows how to do that. I would love for them to stand here with me and show me on my phone how to walk through that and. Help me with that. So I wouldn't really be comfortable with them like taking my phone to the back and doing that, but I wanna like see how they do it and you know, just have my phone be there with me.

Here's another thing. We are going to be mindful when posting photos online, so avoid landmarks or geotags that reveal your location. So we wanna. You know, if you're taking a photo outside, don't take it in front of your house. That shows like your front door and your house number on there. Or if you're out and about, um, at, I don't know, at the crumble cookie store, right?

You show the location. They know, you know, they can figure that out. It's also gnarly too, like with ai. Now if you. Put and drop a photo into ai. It'll tell you where that location is, um, with a landmark. So if you're taking a photo of you and your friend, like you don't necessarily have to show, you know, just show yourselves with the cookies instead of like the store.

I would do that. So remember, I don't know if any of you watched, I, I can't watch these. I, I hate it on Netflix. You know the story of the. Tragic, um, Idaho killer of the, the students there. Um, it was the social media clues that helped the killer locate them. So there's no victim blaming. We only know what we know, and this is all on the perpetrator, but awareness is critical.

You know, we should all be able to take pictures of wherever the crap we wanna take pictures and have whatever we want in the background and not have psycho people coming after us. But in the world we live in, this is the way it is. So just be mindful of that. So the key takeaways are tech is a double-edged sword, right?

It's convenience versus safety. So for me it just makes me so frustrated 'cause it's like, are they being careless or clueless? Because if you roll out something like this, you have to know, you know that this poses. A safety issue and you know, unless you wanna be sued, you should really, and unless you care, you should really put out some protective factors and make sure you know that they're not, when they roll that out, maybe list out some hay, you know, here are some safety ideas, blah, blah, blah.

You know, do something. Just make people aware. Don't just roll that out without any disclaimers or. You know, any tips. Um, and the other key takeaway is small intentional adjustments can drastically reduce risks. Just taking like two minutes to go to your phone, go through there and turn all your location sharing off is great, right?

Less to worry about. So lastly, awareness and proactive steps can protect yourself and others without relying on luck. So. I know that. Cut. What else? How do I wrap this up?

Oh, you can tuck this in Dre. While Instagram's new feature aims to enhance user experience, it raises significant privacy and safety concerns. A bipartisan group of 37 US State Attorneys General has warned that this feature could endanger children and victims of violence urging meta to make immediate changes.

So Meta's in charge of Facebook and Instagram, so let's hope that they listen, right?

If you wanna double check and go into your Instagram map, location sharing. Just to make sure that that is off, you can for your iPhone, open the Instagram app and go to your direct messages. Tap the map icon at the top of your inbox. Tap the gear settings the icon in the top right corner. Select who can see your location.

Choose no one to disable location sharing for the Android. You could open the Instagram app. Go to your direct messages. Tap the map icon at the top of your inbox. It's the same. Tap the settings icon gear in the top right hand corner and select who can see your location and then choose no one to disable location sharing.

It's just like the iPhone. But again, if you nip this in the bud and go to location sharing, like I mentioned on the whole phone and turn it all off, then you shouldn't have that be an issue in Instagram. But I just thought I'd throw that out there in case you want to double check it.

Location sharing is off on Instagram by default, so it should be off already.

Remember, it's not your job to outsmart a predator. It's your right to feel safe. These are just the practical steps we can take until tech and society catch up.