Does your weather app need to know exactly where you are? No, and neither does your news app. Imstead of giving apps accurate location, you can now give only approximate location to apps on Android. Once you give only the approximate location, apps will not get your exact location data, ever.
Let’s see how to give only approximate location to apps on Android.
Give Only Approximate Location to Apps on Android
Location data has increasingly become one of the most common user data that many apps have access to. A navigation app such as Google Maps needs your precise location to give you directions. But a news app or a weather app does not need precise location. That’s why we can give them only approximate location access on your Android phone, just like on iPhone.
Once you give an app ‘approximate location‘ it will still get the location, but not an accurate one. Therefore, you can still have a working weather app, you can still get local news, and you can still enjoy Netflix. Here’s how to give only approximate location to apps on Android 12.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to Location and tap on it.
- Here you can see the apps that have most recently accessed your location.
- Tap See all if you don’t see the app you want to only give approximate location to.
- Select the app you want to give only approximate location to.
- On the next page, turn off the toggle at the bottom that says Use precise location.
Android then only gives an approximate location to apps that don’t have this toggle on. Even if you gave an app accurate location permission, you can still revoke it and give the app approximate location permission. For that, go to Settings > Apps and select the app. From there, go to Permissions > Location, and you’ll reach the same Location permission page as shown above. You can also do this from the Permission manager and the new Privacy Dashboard.
So, there are multiple paths you can take to give only approximate location to apps on Android 12. In other words, if you’re at all concerned about your privacy, you can easily disable the precise location for the app and give only the approximate location on Android.
However, there is no option to choose whether you want to give approximate location or precise location to apps on Android. You need to manually disable precise location for each app to give it only approximate location access.
The new option to stop giving apps accurate location and give only an approximate location is a lifesaver. No app developers will know where you live if you block the precise location on the app. There are even more privacy-concerned features and newer additions that come to Android 12 this year.