Turning Off Location Services for Android

Introduction

This article is for customers who publish apps in the Google Play Store for users of Android devices.

Google's Background Location Access Policy requires specific disclosures and demonstrations if you want to use background location access in your Android apps.

Many apps do not require background location access; this article explains how to turn it off for your app.

Turning off background location access

1. Log in to the Partner Dashboard
   
   
2. Under "Apps", select the app you want to change, go to the "Publishing" section, and scroll down to the "App info" part
   
   
3. Just above "Pricing and Availability" you'll see the option "Allow Background Location Services to continually detect your users' locations".  Click the selector so that this option is deactivated:
   
   
   
4. Save your changes
   
   
5. Republish your app

Consequences of turning off background location access

The Android app will no longer provide location-based push notifications that depend on background location access (Geofencing)

If you have the application opened in the foreground (visible) then location functionality like Send Point will work as before even with background location disabled, provided basic location permission has been granted.

Review step 3 of Setting up Push Notifications to learn about the differences between these two notification methods.  

iOS apps are not affected by this change; switching off background location access only affects Android apps.  

If you do not use background location access, then turning it off will not have any impact on your app's functionality.

If you do need to use this feature, then please refer to Turning on location services for Android