Apparent iOS 13 location privacy bug discovered, but a fix is coming

What you need to know

  • iOS 13 apparently suffers from a location privacy bug.
  • A report claims iOS 13 isn't respecting the location privacy setting users select.
  • If you choose "Never," for example, iOS 13 may change it.

There's a location privacy bug affecting devices running iOS 13, which Fast Company wrote about over the weekend.

According to Fast Company, iOS 13 isn't allowing users to change their location privacy settings in certain apps:

We've spotted a nasty location privacy bug users should be aware of. It appears iOS 13 is not respecting the "Location" privacy setting users select for certain apps.

Fast Company also posted a video in which a user tries to set Facebook's location tracking setting to "Never." But iOS 13 changes the setting back to "Ask Next Time." No matter how many times the user changes it, iOS 13 always changes it back, according to Fast Company.

The bug doesn't appear to affect one app in particular. Rather, there's something going wrong in iOS 13. Fast Company said it discovered other apps, not just Facebook, where the same problem occurs. iOS 13's location privacy settings work normally in other apps.

To see if I was affected, I tried changing the location privacy settings on iOS 13 in apps like Yelp, Amazon, and Disneyland, and didn't notice any issues. Your experience may vary.

The good news is Apple will reportedly fix the issue as early as tomorrow when iOS 13.1 (and iPadOS) becomes available.

Brandon Russell