However, the rollout has raised privacy concerns, with many users fearing their exact location is being shared without their consent. In response, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has clarified that location sharing is off by default and only becomes active if users choose to enable it.
Despite Meta’s reassurance, posts are spreading across social media urging people to disable the feature.
One user, Lindsey Bell, replied to a warning video shared by ‘Bachelor’ star Kelley Flanagan on TikTok, writing, “Mine was turned on and my home address was showing for all of my followers to see. Turned it off immediately once I knew but had me feeling absolutely sick about it.”
In her video, Flanagan described the new feature as “dangerous” and showed viewers how to make sure it’s turned off.
Mosseri responded with a post on Threads, saying, “We’re double-checking everything, but so far it looks mostly like people are confused and assume that, because they can see themselves on the map when they open, other people can see them too.”
“We’re still checking everything, though, to make sure nobody shares location without explicitly deciding to do so, which, by the way, requires a double consent by design (we ask you to confirm after you say you want to share),” he added.
Mosseri believes much of the worry is caused by a misunderstanding of how the feature works. For example, some users see a populated map and assume everyone’s live location is visible. In reality, the map pulls location tags from recent Stories or Reels that include a place tag, not necessarily real-time location data.
Still, many users disagree, saying they’re not confused and claiming their location has been visible to others, even after the feature is manually turned off.
Instagram says the map only updates a user’s location when the app is open or running in the background, unlike Snap Map, which allows users to choose whether their location is updated only when they open the app or in real-time.
Users can also opt not to share their location in specific places or with certain individuals.