iOS 11 Will Show a Blue Status Bar When an App Is Always Using Your Location ⇥ techcrunch.com

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch:

Many apps prior to today only allowed users to pick between “Always” and “Never,” when it came to sharing their location data. Obviously, by selecting “Never,” certain apps that needed location to work would simply be unusable. With iOS 11, the third option – “While Using the App” – can be selected for any app, even if the developer didn’t make it available before.

The blue bar goes a step further to actually warn users when apps set to “Always” are actively tracking location.

Remember when Uber said that they would start tracking users’ location for up to five minutes after their ride had ended? Word on the street is that changes like the blue status bar and forcing an “Only While Using App” option when an app requests location access were directly inspired by that incident. Users should have total control over when an app is allowed access to their location, and they should know exactly when that information is being used.