Digital democracy|Digital privacy
X: the most location-hungry social media app
Sharing location data with your favorite apps might seem harmless, but it's crucial to recognize how invasive and sensitive it can be. Even if users opt to disable precise location sharing in the settings, companies like Meta, TikTok, or Pinterest can still infer approximate location, as outlined in their privacy policies.
Imagine your precise location being tracked every 30 minutes — it can paint a detailed picture of your life. Your daily commute could reveal which company you work for, hinting at your salary. Regular visits to a specific location might disclose health concerns if it's linked to a medical center. Even an affair could be uncovered by tracking overnight stays with other users who have social media apps on their devices. Creepy, right? In this study, Surfshark explores how top social media apps use your location information for various purposes.
Key insights
- All top social media¹ apps may collect data related to user location, but Reddit is the only one that declares this type of data will not be linked with user identity. X stands out by collecting both coarse and precise location data for all listed purposes in the App Store. Precise location refers to user coordinates that specify a location with a resolution of three or more decimal places in latitude and longitude, while coarse location indicates an approximate location with lower resolution.² To determine user location, various methods may be used, ranging from GPS and Bluetooth signals to IP addresses and more.
- Furthermore, X and Pinterest may even use location to track users, with X handling both precise or coarse location data, while Pinterest relies on coarse location. This means data could be combined with information gathered from other apps or websites, or even shared with data brokers who might sell it to other businesses.
- All of the analyzed social media apps may gather coarse or precise location data for third-party advertising. This practice leads to users encountering third-party ads within their apps or having their data shared with entities that display these ads.² However, precise location data for this purpose may be collected by 60% of the analyzed apps, including X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Additionally, 90% of top social media apps may also collect coarse location data, and 60% may collect precise location data for their own advertising or marketing purposes, such as delivering marketing messages directly to their users. This makes it nearly impossible for users to escape being targeted by ads.
- Analytics, product personalization, and app functionality are also among the most prevalent purposes for which all top social media apps may collect precise or coarse location. Notably, 80% of these apps may use precise location data to enhance product personalization and app functionality, while 60% may use it for analytics.
- Interestingly, TikTok and Reddit do not collect precise location data for any purpose; instead, they rely on coarse location data in some cases. Meanwhile, X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and Pinterest, may collect precise location data even for "Other purposes," which includes any other use cases not previously mentioned. However, the App Store does not provide detailed information or examples of the potential uses within that category.
Methodology and sources
This study explores how the top 10 social media¹ apps — X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit — handle user location data. Data was sourced from the App Store on August 11, 2025. The analysis focuses on identifying the types of data collected, in particular precise and coarse location data, and examining the purposes for which each app uses this information.
For the complete research material behind this study, visit here.
