Facebook has always encouraged registered users to share things with friends and now also wants them to share their position. The " friends in the vicinity " function, active for more than a year in the USA, has also been finally integrated in Italy in the Facebook app for Android and iPhone and allows you to see which friends are nearby and, at the same time, to share the our position with others .
The goal is to facilitate real encounters between friends while going out and about.
The new feature uses the phone's geolocation technology to determine when one of our friends is close to us.
When activated, the Facebook app will show notifications communicating which friends are around.
This function is different from the check-ins in places that always allow you to share the location, but only when we are in a particular place and manually.
With "friends nearby" instead, sharing, once activated, becomes automatic and the position is transmitted only to our friends.
READ ALSO: See the Facebook position history with a map of all the trips
To use Friends nearby on Facebook, you must first activate it within the application.
Those who do not activate it will not share the position and will not receive any information on the position of others.
The option is found and activated in the settings of the Facebook app on iPhone and Android by tapping on "friends nearby" and following the short guided tutorial.
It then indicates the number of friends who have this function active and then with whom to share the position, or who can see where we are at all times.
Standard visibility is for friends, it cannot be set to " public " or " Friends of friends ", but it is possible to restrict the field to restricted lists such as that of family members, friends without acquaintances, close friends or other personalized lists.
After activation, permission is requested to access the phone tracker and, in the case of activating the service (which does not use GPS).
The detection of Facebook's position is not accurate by the meter, but remains a bit vague, saying, for example, that the friend is in a certain city or in a certain neighborhood, distant from us 2KM.
The exact coordinates are not automatically shared.
From the list of nearby friends, you can tap the arrow button next to a name to choose to share the exact location on the map with him and for how long, if for a few hours, if always or only when we want to.
Then when a friend is very close, a notification will arrive on the phone.
From the Facebook app, by going to Settings and Privacy and then Account settings> Location, you can disable the location history function and then also enable or disable the function of nearby friends.
Those who are concerned about their privacy will have to do is keep the "Friends nearby" function disabled and turn off location services (always from the same settings screen) and nobody will know where we are, unless the location is shared when you publish something or while chatting on Messenger.
Even if you notice an excessive consumption of battery of the smartphone by Facebook it is better to disable it.
READ ALSO: Follow the movements of friends on Messenger in real time
