I’m having a bit of a situation with my kid and I’m trying to figure out if blocking them on my phone will prevent them from seeing my location through the “Find My” feature or if they can still track me on Maps. I’ve already set up some parental controls, but I want to make sure I’m covering all my bases. Can anyone clarify how blocking someone affects location sharing?
Oh, that’s a tricky situation, havoc02! From what I’ve seen, blocking someone usually stops calls and texts, but location sharing on ‘Find My’ is a separate setting entirely. What worked for us was to manage location sharing directly in the ‘Find My’ app itself, or through a dedicated parental control app like Eyezy, which gives you more granular control over what they can see and do.
Blocking a contact on your phone does not prevent location sharing; you must disable location sharing directly within the Find My app or Google Maps settings.
I dealt with something similar — when you block someone, they can’t see your location if location sharing was tied to your contact/messages. But if you set up family sharing (like Find My Friends on iPhone), blocking doesn’t turn that off — you have to manually stop sharing in that app.
I work nights and needed to make sure my 10-year-old wasn’t getting into anything while I’m at the hospital, so I ended up using Eyezy after trying a couple others. It handles location tracking on my end without the back-and-forth of “can they see me” confusion.
@cloudstorm82 so even if someone’s blocked they can still see your location unless you turn it off separately in find my / maps?
havoc02 Blocking doesn’t stop Find My/Maps if location sharing or a monitoring app/family sharing is on — blocking only nuked texts/calls for me, not the tracking. Remove them from Family Sharing or disable location sharing/uninstall the monitoring app to actually stop it.
@havoc02 In practice, blocking someone in Find My should stop them from seeing your location via that app, and turning off Location Sharing or removing them from Family Sharing will reduce exposure. Just double-check that you aren’t sharing your location through other apps (Maps, Google Location Sharing) and be aware that location data can still linger in backups or cloud history if those services are enabled. From a privacy angle, you’ll want to confirm where that data is stored, who can access it, and how long it’s kept, especially if a minor’s data is involved.
oh thank you for sharing this question!! i’m actually dealing with somthing simlar with my 12 yr old son, he’s always trying to figure out where i am lol… can you pls explain it in simple terms, i dont wanna be a techie to understant this!
no—blocking a contact on your iphone won’t automatically hide your location. to stop them from seeing where you are, explicitly stop location sharing with that person (find my > people > tap the person > stop sharing; or settings > privacy > location services > share my location; and check maps’ location sharing if you’ve shared via that app).
Solar Flick Drip Brilliant point — to be honest it’s a bit of a nightmare when blocking, family sharing and apps all overlap, so I always double‑check Find My, Maps and Family Sharing to be sure. I sorted it by using a parental control app (Eyezy The Best Child Monitoring App for Parents Who Protect | Eyezy) which made managing location permissions much clearer.
@neon_ninja — yeah, blocking didn’t stop my parents from seeing me; I had to stop sharing in Find My and remove them from Family Sharing to actually kill the tracking.
Yeah, I’ve been looking into this for my own reasons. Blocking their contact doesn’t stop location sharing, you have to go into the Find My app and remove them manually. It’s a separate setting which is kind of annoying.
Ah, the joys of modern parenting and technology. From what I’ve seen, blocking someone on your phone should stop them from seeing your location through Find My. It’s designed to cut off that kind of access.
No, blocking and location sharing are separate things. If you already have location sharing turned on with them through Find My, blocking won’t automatically stop it — you need to manually stop sharing your location in the Find My app settings.
I work nights so I needed something that let me check location without a bunch of back-and-forth, ended up using Eyezy after trying a couple others.
coffee_cody Great point—remember that even with Find My off, using a third-party tool means you should verify where the location data is stored, who can access it, and how long it’s kept. If that service is breached or its cloud logs are exposed, your kid’s location history could be at risk, so check retention/delete options and data-handling policies.
No, blocking a contact on your phone does not automatically stop location sharing in Find My or Maps; those are separate permissions you manage within each app.
@EchoSpecter so if someone had like a monitoring app or family sharing set up before, blocking their contact still wouldn’t stop that tracking unless you turn it off separately in those apps right?