How To's >> Prevent disabling location services on Android/iOS
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How to prevent turning off location services on devices?

Many organizations like logistics companies or cab services, track the corporate devices' locations to ensure that the user bearing the device is on the right track. To obtain the most recent device location, the organizations must enable Location Services on the devices at all times. But many users tend to disable the Location Services on devices either to reduce battery consumption or to avoid displaying the device location for privacy reasons. Mobile Device Manager Plus lets you know the current device location in near real-time and also the device location over a period of time. Additionally, it allows organizations to permanently keep Location Services on and prevent location services from being turned off or disabled on iPhone and Android devices.

Apart from tracking the device location, MDM allows admins to perform various remote actions like corporate wipe, remote alarm based on the current device location.

How to lock location services on Android devices and Apple devices?: You can permanently enable and lock Location Services on Android devices, over-the-air using MDM. In case of iOS devices, you must have the device in hand to permanently enable Location Services, as Apple doesn't allow location services from being turned-off over-the-air to protect user privacy.

Pre-requisites

To prevent users from turning off location servies on iOS or Android devices the following pre-requisites must be met:

For iOS 

Devices must be with the Administrator, as the settings need to be manually configured on the devices and should be secured with a passcode.

For Android

Devices must be either Samsung devices or must be provisioned as Device Owner.

Steps to prevent disabling location services

For iOS Devices

Enabling Location Services

  1. Firstly, ensure ME MDM app has been installed on the device. Know how to automate MDM MDM app installation here.
  2. After ME MDM app has been installed on the iOS device, open the app and for the Allow Location Access option, select Always or While using the app, though it is recommended to enable the former to keep location tracking always on. 

Note: ME MDM app fetch the location details only when there is a significant change (at least 500m) in the location of the mobile device. Due to this, the location shown on the MDM server might be the last location rather than the current location in case of iOS devices for certain scenarios. You can get the exact location of device by sending a notification. To enable notifications on devices, you can associate a app notification profile to the device.

How to prevent turning off Location Services on iOS devices

The steps to prevent disabling/turning off Location Services for continuous tracking of device location, differ for devices running OS versions above iOS 12 and below iOS 12

On devices running iOS 12 or later versions,

  1. Click on Settings and select Screen Time. Now click on Turn On Screen Time.
  2. Click on Continue, when prompted. Click on the option, This is My iPhone and select Content & Privacy Restrictions.
  3. Firstly, enable Content & Privacy Restrictions and click on Location Services
  4. Enable Location Services, which then displays the list of apps which require location permission. Verify if ME MDM app has the permission set as Always or While using the app.
  5. Once verified, select the option Don't Allow Changes to prevent turning off Location Services on iPhone.
  6. Now, go back to Screen Time and click on the option Use Screen Time Passcode and set a passcode for Screen Time, which prevents the device user from modifying the settings without the passcode. To disable, you need to go to Screen Time and click on Turn Off Screen Time and provide the passcode, when prompted.

Note: The above Settings will not work on the device when the Screen Time restriction is applied via Profiles.

On devices running below iOS 12,

  1. Navigate to Settings -> General -> Restrictions.
  2. Click on Enable Restrictions and specify a restrictions passcode, when prompted.
  3. Navigate to Privacy section and select Location Services. Enable the Location Services option. Under the Location Services menu, all the apps installed in the device are listed. You can disable/ enable Location Services for the apps here. Once this has been configured and the settings  saved, the Location Services cannot be modified for the existing apps. If any new app is installed after the settings has been configured, Location Services will not be granted to the app. To modify Location Services for the apps, the settings has to be re-configured.
  4. Finally, select the option Don't Allow Changes in the Location Services menu, which ensure the settings configured in the previous steps cannot be modified by the users. To disable, you need to navigate to Settings -> General -> Restrictions, clicking on Disable Restrictions and specifying the restrictions passcode when prompted.

To apply this restriction to keep location always turned on on multiple devices, take a backup of a device after disabling location services and restore the backup on multiple devices using the steps given here.

Note: In case of devices whose OS has been updated from iOS 11.x to iOS 12.x, you need to disable Location Services again, Apple moved it from Restrictions to Screen Time.

How to prevent disabling Location Services on Android devices?

To prevent disabling location services on Android devices, follow the steps given below:

  1. On the MDM Server, navigate to Device Mgmt and select Profiles(under Manage).
  2. Click on Create Profile and select Android Profile from the dropdown.
  3. Provide the required details and create the profile.
  4. Click on Restrictions and select Location settings.
  5. For the restriction Location Services, select the option Always On.
  6. Save and Publish the profile. Now distribute this profile to devices.

On successful association of the profile, the devices have Location Services enabled permanently and lock Location Services on Android devices, allowing admins to track the device location at all times.

Note: Extended usage of Location Services can affect the device battery life.