> the user can breathe a sigh of relief as their location cannot be shared with nearby devices unless the app explicitly states it — which most users will unanimously deny. If Facebook simply have their app say it won't work without accepting this, then I very, very much doubt that anything but a miniscule number of people would be uninstalling the app.
Under GDPR they cannot do this in Europe. You're only allowed to deny the user the experience of the app if the basic service cannot be met without collecting the user's data (i.e. location data for a turn-by-turn direction app)
While doing that anyway would be an egregious breach of GDPR I wouldn’t put it past Facebook to do it. They could release the update that prompts users to accept the tracking with the threat of being denied service, maybe pay a fine for breaching the GDPR regulations, take some time to ‘fix’ the issue and push out a new update after enough people have accepted to make it worth their while. I know it’s much more complicated than that but considering how much trouble people apparently have trying to leverage the data retrieval or removal requests under the GDPR[0] it looks like they think they’re above the law and are willing to make an effort to avoid complying with it. I wonder how far they’re willing to push it.