FACEBOOK has been tracking your location and you probably didn't even realise it.

You may notice that after going to that new burger joint down the road , you start getting bombarded with Facebook notices about the restaurant you've just visited.

1 Facebook is a free service, so it needs to get its users to engage with advertisers if it wants to earn money Credit: Reuters

Or you realise that all of your suggested friends on Facebook are people who you have only just met and you don’t share any mutual friends with them.

What's going on?

To find out, we spoke to the Open Rights Group, which campaigns to protect the rights to privacy and free speech online.

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Ed Johnson-Williams, who specialises in digital security, told The Sun Online that Facebook tracks your location to help advertisers connect to people who are in a specific area.

Smartphone phones can discover your whereabouts by working out your position in relation to mobile masts.

He said: “They also have GPS inside the phone and that makes data available to apps. It is sensitive data a lot of the time and people should be aware of the tracking.”

How to stop Facebook from tracking you for iPhone users Open the Facebook app on your iPhone

Tap on “ More ” in the bottom-right corner of your navigation

” in the bottom-right corner of your navigation Select “ Account Settings ”

” Select “ Location ”

” Finally, tap on the “Off” option for “Location History”

For example, it's claimed that Facebook could know your location even when you are not using the app.

Johnson-Williams added: “I would not be surprised if they were doing that. You can easily check into a place and when Facebook asks for your permission to use your location you end up giving it other permissions as well.”

The Facebook Messenger app already asks you if you want to use your location in the background.

To prevent your location from being tracked any longer you can makes changes in your phone's settings, the app settings or by going through specific prompts within the Facebook app itself.

But in order to just stop Facebook from tracking your location you should make changes within the app itself.

How to stop Facebook from tracking you for Android users Open the Facebook app on your Android

Tap on the Menu icon (☰) on the top right-hand corner

on the top right-hand corner Select “ Account Settings ”

” Select “ Location ”

” Disable “ Location History ”

” Select “ Location Services ”

” Finally, tap on the “Off” option

Johnson-Williams said: “I don’t think people should be forced to dive deep into their settings to turn off their location.”

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