Location sharing is a feature that can be both helpful and harmful. There are plenty of different apps that provide this feature including Apple’s “Find My”, Snapchat, and Life360. While these features can be useful at times, it is important to be aware of and manage who exactly can see your location.
In my own personal experience, having one or two trusted people to share your location with provides an extra sense of security. For example, I make sure to share my location with my roommate. That way, if either one of us is out and doesn’t come home at the expected time, we’re able to see where the other person is, especially if we’re out when it’s dark. On top of that, if either of us were to ever get hurt or need help, it’s much easier to figure out where the other person is.
Expanding out from the couple of trusted people you share your location with, sometimes it is helpful to share your location with another friend if you’re on a trip with them or just going out for the night. One method of doing this is through Apple’s feature that allows you to share your location for an hour, until the day of the day, or indefinitely. For example, when I went to the Eras Tour and had to meet up with a friend to get my ride at the end of the show, it was much easier to share our locations through the end of the day in order to meet up. That way, we didn’t have to text each other and get lost trying to meet up in the sea of people all leaving at the same time.
However, when using a feature like this, making sure you are aware of how long your location is being shared and confirming that you turn it off once it is no longer needed will add an extra layer of safety. For example, although Apple’s feature is helpful, when looking in the “Find My” app today, I noticed that numerous friends who I haven’t spoken to in years were still sharing their location with me. Even if most people mean well and would never do anything with that information, I would be uncomfortable knowing that someone I hardly talk to anymore could see where I am at any moment, simply for the sake of my privacy. This issue also exists on Snapchat’s Snap Map, where many people allow their location to be accessed by any person they are friends with on the app. Once again, most of the time this is probably harmless, but if hundreds of people can see your location through Snapchat at any given moment, you’re losing a lot of privacy and may even forget that someone you’d rather stay away from can see your location.
There’s no one right way to manage your location sharing and ultimately each person can decide how many people they share their location with, but it is still important to take caution. These features make us increasingly connected and constantly online, so maintaining privacy and safety is important to take into consideration when discussing location sharing.