When a Family Member's Location
Permission Gets Silently Revoked
Nobody uninstalled anything, nobody changed a setting on purpose — and yet someone's location just stops updating one day. Here's what's actually happening, and how to fix it in under a minute.
July 2026 · 5 min read
Android Resets "Unused" Permissions on Its Own
Since Android 11, the OS automatically resets permissions for any app that hasn't been opened in a few months — a privacy feature aimed at apps you've forgotten about. Raksha runs quietly in the background by design, which is exactly the kind of app pattern that can trip this. If a family member never opens the app directly (because everything they need shows up as a notification), Android can eventually decide it's "unused" and strip location access without asking anyone first.
Battery Optimization Is a Separate, More Common Culprit
More often, it isn't a permission reset at all — it's aggressive battery optimization on the phone's manufacturer skin (common on Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and some Samsung devices) quietly killing Raksha's background process to save power, which stops location updates without ever touching the permission itself. From the family circle's side, both look identical: a member's dot freezes and "last seen" stops moving. See the battery optimization guide below for the manufacturer-specific fix.
How to Tell Which One Happened
Open Raksha directly on the affected phone. If you're greeted with a permission request screen again, it was the Android auto-reset — grant location access (and choose "Allow all the time," not just "while using the app") and it'll start updating again immediately. If the app opens straight to the dashboard with permissions already showing as granted, it's almost certainly battery optimization silently suspending the app in the background — that needs a manufacturer-specific whitelist step, not a permission grant.
Preventing the Auto-Reset From Recurring
Opening the app itself even briefly, once every few weeks, resets Android's "unused" clock and avoids the auto-revoke entirely. For a family member who genuinely never has a reason to open Raksha (everything comes to them as a push notification), a monthly reminder to just tap the app icon open once is a simple, low-effort habit that avoids this whole class of problem.