Here's Why Telegram Users Should Turn Off This Location Feature

The age of social media has made us more connected than ever. In some ways, this is a good thing, making it easier to communicate across distances, as well as meet new people we may otherwise not have. Of course, as with anything else, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. In their eagerness to connect everyone in the world, some social media services get a little carried away and end up revealing more than we're really comfortable with.

One such service that toes this line is Telegram. While Telegram is primarily intended as a simple messaging app, it has some additional features meant to encourage connectivity — one of which is its location-based "People Nearby" feature. What sounds somewhat innocuous could prove potentially problematic for your privacy, not to mention your safety, so you should play it safe and disable the feature as soon as possible.

Telegram's People Nearby feature, in a nutshell, allows you to see other active Telegram users within a certain radius of your current position — particularly those who are currently browsing through the same content as you or participating in local group chats. The idea is that you could use this feature to quickly find people near you with similar interests and become fast friends.

The problem here is twofold: Firstly, broadcasting the fact that you're online to random people in your vicinity opens you up to potential targeting by weirdos and scammers. If anyone nearby can immediately open a dialogue with you, it's almost guaranteed that some wise guy who wants to sell you something will try.

Secondly, and more concerningly, this feature could potentially be used to pin down your precise location in real life. This could be extremely dangerous for those who deal with stalkers or other abusive individuals. Even if you don't have a stalker, it's not wise to broadcast your location to strangers.

In the interest of protecting yourself from strangers, it's time to disable Telegram's People Nearby feature. Thankfully, doing this is as simple as flipping a few toggles in the app.

1. Open the Telegram app.

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2. Open the Contacts menu.

3. Tap the "Find People Nearby" option.

4. At the top of the People Nearby list, tap the red "Stop Showing Me" option.

When People Nearby is disabled, you won't be able to see whether other Telegram users are in your vicinity, nor will other users be able to see you. This should be more than enough to hide your location, but if you're still worried, you can also revoke the app's location-tracking permissions entirely in your mobile device's settings.

1. On iOS devices, open the Settings app.

2. Tap the Privacy & Security option.

3. Tap Location Services.

4. Tap Telegram.

5. Under Allow Location Access, tap the "Never" option.

On Android devices:

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Tap Apps.

3. Tap Telegram.

4. Tap Permissions.

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5. Tap Location.

6. Tap the "Don't allow" option.

You won't be able to use any of Telegram's location-based features if you revoke the app's location permissions. If you ever want to turn them back on, you can do so from the Settings menu, or by attempting to use a location-based service in the app and re-granting permission.