{"id":130614,"date":"2019-02-21T21:30:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T21:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=130614"},"modified":"2025-07-01T22:19:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:19:37","slug":"facebook-location-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/facebook-location-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook could be tracking your location"},"content":{"rendered":"

What can be classed as a credible threat? You might think that such a classification would be better suited to a story about the NSA, FBI, or CIA than a story about Facebook, but you\u2019d be surprised. According to a story by CNBC<\/a>, Facebook security teams have been drawing up lists of people who they consider to be \u2018credible threats\u2019 to the company. So, what does it all mean?<\/p>\n

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Credible threats are those that carry too much weight to simply be ignored. If you\u2019ve posted on Facebook that you want to blow up Facebook HQ, you likely won\u2019t be considered a credible threat. If, however, you said you\u2019re going to attack a particular Facebook location at a particular time, then there is a very good chance Facebook\u2019s security teams will consider you a credible threat. Other examples include people who\u2019ve been to shareholder meetings and issued verbal threats.<\/p>\n

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If you end up on Facebook’s list, you can say goodbye to your privacy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This move is a reasonable one, considering Facebook recently had to evacuate its headquarters due to a bomb scare<\/a> and other tech companies, like YouTube, have seen their headquarters attacked by gunmen.<\/p>\n

Facebook security teams can track users deemed as threats through location and IP data<\/h2>\n

The issue with Facebook doing the tracking (and this fits in with privacy concerns raised last week over the Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram merger<\/a>) is that if it wants to, Facebook can track people extremely well.<\/strong> Facebook has access to a sea of data about every one of its users, including location and IP data, which means if it deems a user to be a credible threat, it is very easy for Facebook security teams to then track their every movement. Facebook can even track Android users who aren’t on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the CNBC report, Facebook\u2019s list of credible threats includes hundreds of names<\/strong>, including almost all people that have been fired by the social giant. The list is updated weekly, and whenever a new name is added to it, all Facebook security personnel are notified, receiving information like their name, photo, location details and why they\u2019ve added to the list. This then makes them eligible for tracking and could lead to their details being passed to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

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More about Facebook's scandals<\/p>\r\n

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Facebook deliberately shared your data with 60 companies \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n

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Facebook banned \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n

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Facebook suspends over 200 apps in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n

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Facebook deletes over 200 accounts and pages linked to Russian troll farm \u25ba<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n

If this all seems reasonable to you, you\u2019re not wrong, but there is something else to consider. CNBC also reported that whereas some people were reasonably added to the list, others were added for smaller offenses like commenting things like, \u201c’F— you, Mark,’ ‘F— Facebook’ or ‘I’m gonna go kick your a–,’\u201d on posts by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Offensive trolling this might be, but it hardly warrants the massive violation of civil rights that being a part of Facebook\u2019s \u201cbe on lookout\u201d (BOLO) list represents. In theory, if you\u2019ve ever said anything negative about Facebook, they could be tracking your location right now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The key in all of this is regulation<\/strong>. Facebook is adamant that it is able to regulate itself and ensure it is always acting in a way that isn\u2019t contrary to public interest. If, however, people are having their civil liberties infringed for saying something mean about Facebook\u2019s big boss, it looks they might not be. With the UK government now aggressively calling for Facebook to be regulated<\/a> and going as far as to call Facebook execs gangsters, it might not be long before matters like this one are taken out of Facebook\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

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After destroying local news, Facebook throws $300 million at local news<\/p>\r\n Read Now \u25ba<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook security teams can track users deemed as threats through location and IP data<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9073,"featured_media":112800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[2353,1059,1624,1027],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-130614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionfacebook","tag-facebook","tag-privacy","tag-security"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326532,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130614\/revisions\/326532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130614"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=130614"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=130614"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=130614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}