How to Prevent Users from Turning Off Location Services in iOS Supervised Devices with Screen Time (4259141)

Apple device administrators may need to prevent location services from being disabled on supervised devices before these are distributed to the end-users.

At this time, Apple does not offer the ability to prevent Location Services from being disabled through an MDM solution, nonetheless, as a workaround, administrators may still lock Location Services settings through the iOS Screen Time Feature.

Pre-requisites:

1. iOS devices must be in version 12.0+
2. Device must be with the administrator for screen time settings to be configured.
3. If restrictions are enabled for the iOS devices in KACE Cloud, make sure "Allow Screen Time" is checked.

Enabling Screen Time on Supervised Devices:

1. Navigate to Settings and select Screen Time
2. Select Turn On Screen Time and Continue
3. Select option “This is My iPhone” or “This is my iPad”
4. Select Content & Privacy Restrictions
5. Enable Content & Privacy Restrictions
6. Under Privacy, select Location Services
7. Make sure Location Services is enabled and then select the option Don’t Allow Changes
8. Go back to the main Screen Time page and select Use Screen Time Passcode. This is used to secure the configuration so it will not be disabled by end users.
9. Next, the Apple ID will be requested for passcode recovery purposes
10. Verify under Privacy that Location Services cannot be changed