Safety concerns aside, you should trust your partner enough to not need to track them
If a partner demand they have it on to prove they’re not cheating, then they should be looking for a different partner.
The partner demanding that is projecting like a Barco DP2K-32B.
I’ve already solved that by not finding a partner 😎👎
Exactly. My girlfriend will disappear for an entire day and not come home until 10pm. I usually have no idea where she is or what she’s doing (mainly because I forget due to having ADHD), but I don’t worry about it because I know she’ll never cheat. How can a person even be with someone who they don’t trust? Without trust, there is no relationship IMO.
that doesn’t always work out the way you’re expecting though, but I agree, trust should be opt-out.
There is the case of the worriers. People who, when not given positive confirmation otherwise, assume the worst. I’m not talking cheating, but like accidents. “He’s 5 minutes late, maybe he got in a car accident and died!” It’s not healthy, but it is common and isn’t a trust issue.That said, my partner doesn’t get to track me, and I have no interest in tracking them.
I mean that’s me to a T but I just suppress those thoughts.
Relationships based on trust?!
Surely you jest!For me, knowing my spouse’s location is just convenient for knowing ETA without bothering her. It’s not really about trust at all
Same. We both follow each other and neither of us care. We mostly have it enabled for the “just in case” scenario that anything happens to one of us. We can make sure that we know of our last known location.
I’ve also had her use it one time I was away from home in NYC. And I was too drunk to figure out which subway to take to get back to my hotel. So she walked me through step by step while on the phone with me. It fucking rocked.
Exactly my thought. It’s nothing to do with jealousy and just kind of convenient if you need to meet up or are seeing if they’re on their way home and can get dinner started or whatever.
I figure if my phone manufacturer and cell providers are tracking me all day, why not also my closest friends and family.
There should also be enough trust for either side to never use it except for emergencies.
If you can’t trust your spouse without location, tracking, find another spouse.
No they need therapy not another spouse. They shouldn’t have a spouse at all until they’ve fixed their own insecurities.
Of all the dystopian things, this is probably the most dystopian thing I’ve read lately.
This is horrible.
People my age have their whole friend groups on location sharing apps like that, it’s awful.
Wtf? Is this the outcome of growing up with helicopter parents or where are those trust issues coming from?
I’m assuming this is a young group, and they’ve grown up in the always-connected, always-surveilled modern world.
I’ve met plenty of people that are surprised or even suspicious when I say that I try to avoid corporations and governments tracking me. I guess the Overton window has shifted so that people expect and accept constant surveillance.
It’s nothing about trust issues- privacy is just a foreign concept to that generation. It was dead and gone before they were born. They take for granted that eveyone has their phone on them at all times and is never unreachable, so knowing where all your friends are is just a matter of convenience.
I’ve actually done a little to combat this, in my personal life (apart from ordinary privacy stuff like librewolf und Linux). I got so sick of the majority of my friends expecting me to reply to every text message within 30 minutes, and then getting extremely offended when I didn’t (simply because I don’t look at my phone that often), that I turned off read-receipts on all my messaging apps, and set my notifications to only arrive in groups at specific times of day.
Then I made a habit of not answering unimportant messages for a few days, until I got the reputation that I pretty much don’t use my phone (I also don’t use conventional social media, and none of my friends even know I’m in lemmy). This worked like a charm! My social life much, much less stressful.
I’ve broken the absurd contract that so many people seem to think they have a right to. My time is now my own. I can highly recommend this system! Of course, I can’t do it for work-related stuff, but it still really has reduced my stress by a lot.
Witch your age group. Do you mind giving examples where it’s been helpful and maybe examples when it’s not been so helpful?
Like 16-17, I don’t talk to the people that do that too much because they’re not the type of person I like hanging out with, so I don’t really know why they do it.
It’s like an extension of their group chats, on snapchat.
Why, though?
Some friends of mine have literally hundreds of friends with their Snapchat location sharing on
Most people my age that I know have location tracking shared with SO’s. It’s considered a step in the relationship.
Grim
deleted by creator
My girlfriend and I share our locations mainly for convenience and safety. It’s nice to know that she’s 3 tram stops away from home so I can start cooking dinner for example. She’s also terrible at responding to texts and calls though lol
Same with my wife. I even have it set up for my mother, so I know she’s safe. I don’t understand what the big deal is, as you say it’s a safety and convenience feature, it doesn’t mean you spend the day looking at the app to see where the other person is.
It’s not something I would do in a casual or new relationship, but if I’m with somebody for years, I value their safety over my (perceived) privacy.
And for the people who think this would prevent or bust cheating: lol. They can just turn it off and complain of bad reception, or leave their phone in their car, while they “shop at the mall”. Or just get a second phone. This app is not a substitute for trust
Regarding tech privacy: it’s not like other apps on your phone are not already tracking, I doubt anybody has their GPS constantly turned off. They already know your location, this one feature doesn’t make a difference.
For one, it wrecks your battery life.
Secondly, everyone I know my age keeps GPS off unless using a mapping program.
Finally regarding app privacy, people do care about that which is why grapheneos and other privacy focused OS’s exist.
The fact that you don’t care about privacy and want the government and corporations to have every sext you’ve ever received or sent doesn’t mean that others don’t care as well.
Google map’s location sharing does not even impact battery life.
This says otherwise https://geofinder.mobi/blog/does-location-sharing-drain-battery/
that might as well be AI generated. there are no numbers, just some dumb matrix with arbitrary reasoning and now evidence. I’m all for evidence to the contrary, but this is not that
While I can’t find any source to back up my claim that it certainly drains some amount of battery, can you provide any evidence that it doesn’t impact battery life? Given that GPS uses significant processing power
She could text you, no? It seems like getting her to be better at that is better than opening the can of worms involved with location sharing. For example, here’s some bad stuff that could happen:
- phone sells that data to advertisers
- gov’t gets that info and you trigger an alarm (maybe you went hiking a little too close to a sensitive area)
- data breach happens and now crooks know when you’re not home
- SO’s creepy friend sees your location and is secretly stalking you
Etc. Those probably aren’t super likely, but being able to avoid it all entirely with a little better communication sounds a lot better.
Sometimes it’s worth it, like you’re going hiking alone or going to a bad part of town.
Yes, clearly the solution is to make her change her behavior. Needing your SO to change themselves is definitely a sign of a healthy relationship.
In a committed relationship, each side should be open to small changes.
Isn’t it strange that “trusting” someone now, means letting them constantly spy on you?
I talked to some late teens about it some months ago. They see it as an “I give you permission to see my every move” kind of thing, as in they have nothing to hide. And they do it pretty early on in relationships, as a show of commitment.
I got my SO to turn off location tracking on Snapchat because I got a message from a family member about his location. She had screenshotted his location from the snap map, searched the address, found the person living there, searched him up, found out he’s also gay, and wondered if I knew he was out with another man?! FYI we attended a dinner party at the guys home.
That’s the level of insane some people get. Constant surveillance, mixed with insecurities and stories of cheating, and you’ve got a shitty ass cocktail.
Me having location shared with my partner of 20 years is one thing. But sharing it with anyone else? Fuck no.
I wouldn’t even share my location with my SO of 10+ years. Why? They don’t need it, and there’s tons of potential negative things with that (phone manufacturer sells it, gov’t takes it w/ backdoor deals, breach reveals it, etc).
I don’t want my SO’s location information, and they shouldn’t want mine. If I’m doing some high risk activity, like doing a long hike alone, sure, but it’s going off immediately after.
The main reason my wife and I don’t have location sharing set up isn’t because of trust or lack thereof between each other, but because I don’t trust proprietary/commercial location-sharing services.
I’ve been meaning to set up a self-hosted system (mainly because it seems like Home Assistant could do some neat automations with that info), but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
One of my gf’s friends went through a pretty nasty breakup, moved and whatnot and most of her friend group were trying to make sure that the ex and his friends didn’t have their location anymore and I’m just sitting here like “its wild that you have to go through that” well a couple weeks later 3 of her tires were stabbed with a screw driver or something, and while there’s no concrete evidence that they learned where she moved, I’m still over here trying to get them all to be more conscious about online privacy and location sharing, but nothing works…
Yeah we use it with home assistant, and Bluetooth beacons to turn on the garden lights when we get home, and turn on interior lights if neither of us are marked as home. Also turn on the electric blanket if we are out and heading towards home after 9pm. Also the person detection camera only alerts us if we aren’t home.
Also turn on the electric blanket if we are out and heading towards home after 9pm
Make sure it defaults to OFF after power loss. My colleague had a close call when the smart plug with the infra panel plugged in decided to turn on after the power outage.
Yes we have several of the AthomTech ones that ship with Esphome. There’s a power loss setting on them “on, off, as before”
Would you mind sharing your automation yaml for the garden lights? I’d love to do more with Bluetooth beacons but don’t know enough about how they work to do anything with them.
We have it hidden in the letterbox. The mobile app has a Bluetooth beacon setting where you can have it report either specified beacons to HA, or all of them and you can filter for the ones you want at that end.
The automation looks for the beacon to be reported from either of 2 devices and then switches the lights on, quite basic.
We have a separate automation that turns the scanning for beacons setting in the phone app on at dusk and off at 3am. And another that turns the garden lights off after 10 min triggered by them being switched on
description: "" mode: single triggers: - value_template: >- {{ state_attr('sensor.phone1_beacon_monitor', 'b5b182c7-eab1-4988-aa99-bd9_1_2') != None }} trigger: template - value_template: >- {{ state_attr('sensor.phone2_beacon_monitor', 'b5b182c7-eab1-4988-aa99-bd9_1_2') != None }} trigger: template conditions: [] actions: - data: {} target: entity_id: - switch.garden_lights - switch.deck_light_table - switch.deck_light_bbq action: switch.turn_on - event: beaconDetected event_data: {} - if: - condition: numeric_state entity_id: zone.home below: 1 then: - data: {} target: device_id: - b5c12ce8343fda7810b69c24f - a71515f86d7d34ef570acbe8 action: light.turn_on
When you get back to that project: I used this project here. Mainly for myself tho.
You don’t need anything other than home assistant though, right? the companion apps already just do that
Well, I need a reverse proxy or VPN or something so that the phones can connect to my Home Assistant server from outside the LAN. That’s the main thing I haven’t gotten done yet.
ah. tailscale is great for that. I personally just leave my home assistant exposed behind a reverse proxy
Hauk
If you sacrifice freedom for security, then you deserve neither.
Patriot act, Snowden, Cambridge Analytica
we already done sacrificed freedom. This is the FO stage
If your partner cant trust you not to cheat then work on your relasionship or end it. Dont do this shit.
My wife always has my location. I regularly go out for hours on my motorcycle and I’ll tell her I’m going for a hour ride and get lost in the woods for 3. Years ago I had to call her to pick me up after a truck decided to go left in front of me and shattered my arm into 4 pieces. Caller her from the hospital bed high as fuck on morphine. She has my location so if I stop responding for hours she can make sure I didn’t wind up in a medical center LOL.
That is entirely different than suspecting you of cheating every moment she doesn’t have eyes on you.
Some of the arguments for mutual tracking relate to safety, not cheating.
For real and there’s so many people in this thread who have only had toxic relationships or are in toxic relationships, projecting insecurities and lack of trust onto others who may not have these problems.
I don’t think this is a good idea for most people, but for some it makes sense and we need to remember that everyone is in different situations.
When you have a spouse that travels a lot, anxiety can get pretty high.
I think most do. Everybody here only looks at the “controlling, jealous partner” and never at the actually “loving, healthy, concerned partner”.
None of the arguments for sharing location relate to cheating. If you are worried your partner is cheating, nothing will assuage your concerns, that is a you and them problem. I don’t think for one second my wife would cheat on me, and not because I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, she’s just a good, honest person, and when we have things come up in our relationship she talks to me.
There was no need for you to re-state my point.
Are you ok?
Sure, then maybe enable it before those rides and disable afterward, and send her a text when you’d like her to keep an eye on it.
Keeping it on all the time has tons of potential privacy-related problems since phones a aren’t perfect.
Meh. My location sharing makes no difference to who I DONT want to see my location, your always being watched if u have a smart phone anyways 🤷 turning it on and off is too much effort to be bothered, I got nothing to hide from her.
This. If your partner is jealous, you’re not the problem. If they can’t work through it with you, walk.
People with trust issues are exhausting. Make sure they’re worth it without losing yourself.
Signed, Experienced
My SO gets super jealous/anxious, probably because of all the horror stories in the news. Having access to my location would only make that worse, because then every time I drop a coworker off at home or something and forget to tell my SO, they’ll get super suspicious.
I’d much rather work off trust than need to explain every little deviation from my normal schedule just to avoid some anxiety.
My wife and I have had our location shared with each other for years, but it’s not a “Are they cheating?” thing. I have been married for 14 years and never wonder if my wife is cheating on me. It’s just incredibly useful for seeing how far away one of us is from home to do things like plan dinner prep times, know where to look for a lost phone, etc. If you can’t trust your SO, there is something wrong that you need to address and micro-managing where they are is toxic.
Also, do yourself a favor and use something open source and/or self hosted. Home Assistant, for example, has the ability to track location data for iOS and Android devices and pin that location to a map. Don’t give your location data to corporations to be used for data mining.
Call me old fashioned, but I put it in the same bucket as a prenup: If you’re always prepping your heart and mind for a split, you’ll always have one foot out the door. Not everyone will agree with me, but that’s how I feel and it’s why I don’t have one. Find yourself someone who is ride or die, if you are looking for a lifetime partner. Don’t settle for someone you can’t trust with your life.
That said, not everyone is looking for monogamy for the rest of their life, either, and that’s OK, too.
Call me old fashioned, but I put it in the same bucket as a prenup
I don’t agree. Prenups are passive, they don’t do anything until not needed. all the while this is a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust.
Legally and practically, prenups are anything but passive. They’re proactive tools. They’re usually dormant, but they’re ready to be called into action.
Marriage is different things to different people. Some have every intention to make it work, no matter what. To them, a prenup is an anti-“burn the ship”. It’s a statement.
Also, tools like “find my” are not major breaches of privacy if both parties jointly agree to use them. For me and my family, it’s the ultimate expression of trust. I’m never somewhere I shouldn’t be, and I like my family knowing where I am, for a multitude of reasons.
There are two types of people who a tracker wouldn’t be effective for: those who are in an inappropriate location, and those who are constantly questioning why someone is in an innocent place, regardless of where it may be. However, at that point, the issue isn’t the trackers; it’s the people.
This comment is just ‘what do you have to worry about it you’re not doing anything wrong’ with extra words.
Consensually choosing to share my location with my wife is not the same as not caring about my data being collected or sold. I don’t have any intention to break her trust, but that has nothing to do with why we share location. It’s all about safety and convenience. I know when she’s working late. She knows when I made it back to my car safely after a night out. I know when she’s on her way home, even when she forgets to text me, so I can start cooking. As two gay women in a conservative area, it just made sense.
Nope. That’s only part of it. You’ve flattened the nuance into cliché without refuting the substance. But if that’s what you walked away with, that’s fine.
Legally and practically, prenups are anything but passive. They’re proactive tools. They’re usually dormant, but they’re ready to be called into action.
that’s what I meant by passive. they don’t do anything until invoked, once.
It’s like comparing a personal forcefield with an always worn camera and mic that streams your life to google’s personal security subsidiary, if I want to magnify the differences.
I don’t see why what you said makes it not passive. maybe we understand that term differently.
Some have every intention to make it work, no matter what.
that’s how abusers learn they can do whatever they want
Also, tools like “find my” are not major breaches of privacy if both parties jointly agree to use them. For me and my family, it’s the ultimate expression of trust.
I don’t necessarily mean breach of privacy that way. if everyone voluntarily agrees, without “problems”, that’s good. but more that the service provider has access to a fuckton of sensitive data! I can imagine people who accept that… and then who also condemn others for wanting to escape shit privacy invading services
all the while this is a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust.
How? My situation is similar to the person you’re replying to and I’m curious how two consenting adults sharing their location with each other is “a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust”.
Maybe if one party is unwilling or has no say/control in location sharing but specifically in the scenario at hand I don’t see it.
because you are not sharing your location with each other. you are sharing your location with a greedy company that also lets your significant other, and then the highest bidder access this information. they are doing whatever they please with it to make (even more) money.
see, I was so into google’s timeline feature years ago. but soon after I realized privacy is a thing I was disgusted of it and turned it off. if you run nextcloud and that addon I don’t remember, or reitti, at home and use that, and you keep is somewhat safe*, then it’s fine, and I could imagine using that, even just for myself.I should have explained that. for some reason I tend to assume that lemmy users are privacy conscious, but that’s probably not true.
* don’t expose the services because your data will get stolen and you’ll get hacked by automated systems. run a VPN on the server, only expose the port of that. then you can access the services through a VPN. wireguard is relatively simple, and it’s secure.
I get that it’s not privacy focused; so much these days isn’t, but I’m still not understanding how two adults knowingly enabling location sharing via a 3rd party service is “a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust”.
I’m gathering that your intent was more along the lines of “it’s not very privacy conscious since you have no control over how the 3rd party uses that data or any way to control it”, would that be accurate?
I get that it’s not privacy focused
its not “not privacy focused”, but it is completely against it. there’s almost zero things private about it, only that it’s not entirely public. but tbh, at that point that difference would not matter to me
I’m gathering that your intent was more along the lines of “it’s not very privacy conscious since you have no control over how the 3rd party uses that data or any way to control it”, would that be accurate?
well, for the most part yes, very mildly
at that point that difference would not matter to me
Got it. Seems like you’re applying your preference to the original commenters situation; that’s where I was getting confused.
I’m not sure I understand you, but my point is that I strictly don’t want my location history to be known by such a company. if it somehow still happened, I wouldn’t care if only that company or anyone from the public would know, because those who really want to know can get access anyway.
another way to put it: I don’t care that my neighbor can have a look at it, because I know they don’t care at all, and have better things to do. but in my opinion, if someone cares to check it any time, there’s a high chance that their intentions are not good or neutral. of course differences like family, maybe coworkers in very soecial jobs, but otherwise.
You can self host location sharing. I do it with Nextcloud. Home assistant can do it too.
I think you didn’t read my comment
you are sharing your location with a greedy company […] and then the highest bidder access this information
Pretty sure I read it.
You can do location sharing WITHOUT interacting with any “greedy company” or “highest bidder”.
Then you state…
if you run nextcloud and that addon I don’t remember, or reitti, at home and use that, and you keep is somewhat safe*
and I confirm that you can do it in Nextcloud, and ALSO Home Assistant… as Home assistant is also likely to be something people are running.
I think you didn’t read my comment
I think that you think that everyone who ever comments to your post is always arguing against you.
Edit: missed a couple of words.
and I confirm that you can do it in Nextcloud, and ALSO Home Assistant… as Home assistant is also likely to be something people are running.
I’m sorry, I misunderstood you then.
I think that you think that everyone who ever comments to your post is always arguing against you.
I don’t think that I think that way. I was responding that because the way the way you said seemed to be more of intending to write new information, than a confirmation.
My wife and I share our location. We both trust each other implicitly and neither of us consider it a breach of privacy, but rather a willing sharing of information. I think if this is demanded of someone unilaterally, it would be both a breach of privacy and trust, but it’s just so damn convenient for our lives and makes us both feel safer. If I’m out late in the city to see a friend, my wife can easily see that I’m safe making it to my car and driving home. If my wife is working late and forgets to text, I can easily check and know she’s still in the building. As two gay women, it was a no-brainer for us. I would never demand that of someone. It seems like a lot of people in the comments see sharing location as an intrinsically harmful or negative action, whereas it’s far more context and consent dependent for me. Hell, I even share my location with a friend for a few hours if I’m doing something sketchy.
We both trust each other implicitly and neither of us consider it a breach of privacy, but rather a willing sharing of information.
I was unclear on what I meant by the breach of privacy. there’s another comment chain discussing that but tldr: it’s not about sharing your location with your SO, but entrusting profit driven careless companies with both of your sensitive information.
Additionally, there’s something I haven’t written in that other thread. It’s not only about the both of you. I as a host (in my house, this does not apply to public places) don’t want to have guests who’s phones are uploading their visit at my place to any such services, because that also affects my privacy. but it’s also a bit weird, because I don’t feel I have the right to ask if they have such an app, let alone asking them to turn it off.
so, my point is not about not trusting your SO, but about not trusting random companies, because they are repeatedly showing both neglect and a big tendency to sell user data and lie to their benefit.
This has nothing to do with the tracking. You should have the same problem with anyone that has location turned on in their phone. Turning on GPS tracking for me and my wife has not given Google new data on our locations, as we use Google maps to navigate as is. I reject the premise that I’m violating someone else’s privacy by doing so. I’ve also opted out of any app using my location without my express permission. You certainly wouldn’t have the right to ask someone to turn something like that off simply because you don’t trust the corporations on the other end, because you have no idea what service, what precautions they’ve taken, and if they’re actively sharing. If you were going to do so, then you should also inspect people’s phones for having location turned on, and check all their apps permissions for location.
This has nothing to do with the tracking.
what is “this”? location sharing apps? if yes, why do you think these are unrelated?
You should have the same problem with anyone that has location turned on in their phone.
I don’t care about a random person having location turned on. why should I? there’s plenty of offline uses for that function, I use it regularly. maps, sports tracking, reminders, …
, as we use Google maps to navigate as is. I reject the premise that I’m violating someone else’s privacy by doing so.
that’s ok, when it only affects you. but when you are navigating to a friend’s place, with this thinking you are just ignorant about what is actually happening. I’m genuinely sorry to point this out.
this is a bit similar to when people refuse the fact that by uploading a picture of someone to facebook they might be violating their privacy.
or when people haphazardly allow contacts access to random apps, or to apps like facebook messenger because it asks so nicely, and then disclaim responsibility over where does that contact information go.You certainly wouldn’t have the right to ask someone to turn something like that off simply because you don’t trust the corporations on the other end,
not just the corporations, but the tech hygiene of the average person. I am aware that it sounds bad, and I hate it that it is warranted.
Are you seriously arguing that navigating to someone’s house with Google maps is violating their privacy? When I do share my location, I’m sharing through Google maps, directly to my wife’s Google account. Google can already see my location for maps purposes. They have obtained no new information. If you are in fact arguing that using Google maps violates the privacy of anyone you navigate to, then I just don’t agree and can’t take you seriously. If you’re arguing that somehow sharing my location to my wife’s account in Google maps is somehow fundamentally different for privacy than using Google maps is already, then I just don’t understand you. You’re okay with people using maps but not sharing their location within those maps apps. That’s a very confusing moral stance.
Are you seriously arguing that navigating to someone’s house with Google maps is violating their privacy? When I do share my location, I’m sharing through Google maps, directly to my wife’s Google account. Google can already see my location for maps purposes. They have obtained no new information.
yes I do. that information does not just stay on your phone. just like taking pictures of someone and uploading them to facebook against their will. or the other examples I already said. convenience does not magically launder an act that goes against someone’s privacy.
you are right that in your case they did not obtain new information with the planned route, because the location sharing already exposes it. I thought it is obvious that it only applies when you are not sharing your location.
You’re okay with people using maps but not sharing their location within those maps apps. That’s a very confusing moral stance.
I don’t see why is that confusing. there are map apps that dont share your searches or anything with anyone. google maps is not the only thing on the world.
My wife and I have had our location shared with each other for years, but it’s not a “Are they cheating?” thing. I have been married for 14 years and never wonder if my wife is cheating on me. It’s just incredibly useful for seeing how far away one of us is from home to do things like plan dinner prep times, know where to look for a lost phone, etc. If you can’t trust your SO, there is something wrong that you need to address and micro-managing where they are is toxic.
My wife and I are the same. Shared location means rather than a message saying “are you on your way home?” you can just check where they’re at. If I’m out on a late night callout she can see where I am instead of worrying or constantly pinging for updates. Meeting somewhere? Live updates keeps everyone in sync, and let’s you know if you’ve got time to do something on the way or if they’re already waiting or whatever.
People must be in some super unhappy relationships if they see location sharing as nefarious.
This is like, the opposite of old-fashioned. Calling your wife when you’re on the way home is old-fashioned.
This article is the first time I’m actually hearing about this idea because it never even occurred to me as something people would actually want to do. I frankly don’t see the point of this nonsense. I would much rather talk to my wife on the phone and communicate with her about plans. It’s much more human and normal, and facilitates good communication habits. It takes 2 minutes to give my wife a call and, you know what, I get to talk to my wife! We don’t need technology invading absolutely every aspect of our lives. We don’t need to be constantly plugged in and attached to our phones at the hip.
It also has other downsides, like making it hard to surprise your partner, constant battery drain from the constant location chatter, etc. In fact, it seems like all downside with no actual benefit (setting aside the trust stuff, because it’s pretty irrelevant either way).
I get where you’re coming from, but I loathe talking on the phone. I love talking to my wife, but we do that when sitting down for coffee and breakfast in the morning.
We don’t need technology invading absolutely every aspect of our lives.
Calling each other is technology. It’s simply a technology you’ve normalized
I can’t believe the number of people in here with paranoia and shitty relationships that can’t communicate with their “partner”
My wife only asked me to ‘follow’ her with location sharing because there was a creepy dude in the area who was approaching women. Otherwise we trust each other enough and actually communicate about the things we do. Plus we don’t cheat on each other - there’s enough stress in life without adding to it lol.
Fun fact, location sharing is literally a form of communication. Super convenient. This thread is filled with people in shitty relationships. Yikes.
You realize you are also sharing your location with third parties or you havent figured that out yet? lmao
Yes, Apple already has my location. Using the location finder in iOS does not share data with advertisers. Also, I spend 99% of my time at my house. Wtf kind of secret shit do you think I’m up to?
Location services definitely does something genius lmao
If you own a smart phone, so are you.
The thread is literally talking about options that enable extra surveillance on your smart phones lmao
RIGHT??? Jesus Christ people… Get some therapy
If you have to use these things in a relationship, then you already have a problem.
This is the correct take.
I don’t want to share my location nor have anyone else’s shared with me.
Friends and partners can text “I’ll be there in 5”
My friend shares her location with her mother. Her mother then nags her with like “Are you seeing someone new? You’re spending a lot of time in north brooklyn now.” Like, who needs that, or even the temptation of that?
A tech solution is not going to fix a social/mental problem like fear of cheating.
Hell, my wife generally knows where I’m going when I go out but only because I want to tell her and usually invite her. I’d hate for her to be able to ask why I’m at a restaurant instead of the bar I said I was going to, even if I’ll tell her about it when I get home
My partner and I share locations. We check sometimes how far away from home they are when walking the dog, or coming from work. Also handy when one of us “loses” their phone and the other can see it’s at home/in the car/at work. But we have trust, and don’t need to check where the other is spending time.
“safety is certainly a big part of the appeal for many users – so I allow the app to alert him each time I reach my front door.” I’m finding that people are irrationally paranoid these days. They see random acts of violence in the news and think it might happen to them but its so statistically unlikely given these are already unlikely events and these people usually middle class people living in nice areas.
Humans are awful at accessing risk and chance, one of the reasons casinos and lotteries thrive.
Look at fear of flying for an example, all statistics say you are many many many times over more likely to get into a car accident on your way to the airport, than during the flight. Even when the ride to the airport is usually short and the flight very long. Yet people are afraid of flying, but not going by car. By percentage, there are of course those, rightly so, afraid of cars as well.
the flight very long.
IIRC most accidents happen during take-off/landing.
Once you’re up there it’s chill.It doesn’t really matter how you measure it, number of flights, duration, distance traveled, etc… No matter which, air travel is by far the safest option. The only other that comes anywhere near is trains. Going by car is bad (though motorcycle is even worse), but so many are afraid of flying that they instead takes the car. Which is among the worst things you could do from a safety point of view.
Risk assessment is probability and severity. The probability can be vanishingly low, but if the severity is astoundingly high then acting like a high risk situation could be appropriate.
Take asteroids. The last planet killer to hit us was 94million years ago. A rudimentary estimate could put the probably as 1:94mil. The severity of an asteroid impact of that magnitude is off the charts, so it is reasonable to consider it a risk and act accordingly to spend resources to search for and track asteroid trajectories.
The severity of abduction, murder, and rape is probably pretty high for most people, so considering it a risk even with a very small probability is not unreasonable.
Location sharing doesn’t prevent any of that though?
Like, no criminal who would want to rape/murder/abduct you knows whether you are sharing your location with anyone. They would do so regardless before anyone can arrive to help you.
Also, no kidnapper on this planet is stupid enough to take your phone with them. You have a slightly higher chance for authorities to be alerted sooner but that’s about it.
Oh yeah, location sharing will have almost no effect those risks. Totally agree.
Just disagreeing that low probability of occurrence automatically means the risk assessment should be low.
They see random acts of violence in the news
Which is the only thing the news shows them to begin with… almost as if they cherry-pick stuff.
BREAKING NEWS: Girl gets home safely after night out. More at 11.
Jesus fuck, what did people do with their spouses and kids before phones? Trust them?
Sounds unlikely.
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If you just see this and, like 20 others, blindly say “you should trust your partner” then you haven’t thought about it at all. If you trust your partner completely, then you trust them to use your location information responsibly, right? So trust does not have any bearing on whether to use it or not.
The issue for me is that we should try to avoid normalising behaviour which enables coercive control in relationships, even if it is practical. That means that even if you trust your partner not to spy on your every move and use the information against you, you shouldn’t enable it because it makes it harder for everyone who can’t trust their partner to that extent to justify not using it.
On a more practical level, controlling behaviour doesn’t always manifest straight away. What’s safe now may not be safe in two years, and if it does start ramping up later, it may be much, much harder to back out of agreements made today which end up impacting your safety.
If you trust your partner completely, then you trust them to use your location information responsibly, right?
No. But it isn’t about that, anyway. Those apps sell your location data to advertisers and governments, and I’m not installing that bullshit on my phone after I kicked google off of it with grapheneOS.
Apple absolutely doesn’t sell that information. The way they implemented it, they can’t even collect the information to sell.
X to doubt, and that doesn’t help people who don’t use walledgardenOS
Bullshit, why would they follow the law here? The penalties are hilariously tiny compared to the profits.
oh good lord no. years, decades, centuries even couples have trusted each other WITHOUT the need to tracking their where abouts. suddenly this is something we need? no it isn’t. but sure, you go ahead and slap a tag on your “loved one” so you know where they are at all times and so will whatever company is selling your data from said tag.
I didn’t say it’s something you need. Read the rest of my comment.
I trust my family. Trust them enough that they have the passcode to my phone and can easily open it at any time.
But I’m not sharing location. How will I sneak out to buy gifts if they get a notification when I leave work? Nope.
My mom the other day sent me like 5 texts in a row because I didn’t see them while working. Had to stop and tell her “For the past century, if most people wanted to contact their kids they waited months for letters to go back and forth. No need to panic over not talking for a day.”
I appreciate the sentiment here, but I disagree with the premise in the first paragraph. It sounds like the age-old “nothing to hide” argument.
I trust my SO with my location information and I have nothing to hide, but I don’t provide it because they don’t need it. That’s it. Why should I compromise my privacy and potentially security just because I trust someone? That’s dumb. They don’t need it so I don’t provide it, that’s my primary reason and that should be enough.
I have other reasons too, such as:
- I don’t trust my or my SO’s phone manufacturer to keep that data confidential, and I don’t want them selling that to someone
- I don’t trust my government to steal that information en masse, and I’d really rather not trigger some alarm somewhere
- I don’t trust most of the apps on my phone with location information, and I’d really rather not trust my phone’s app security to prevent them from getting it
- breaches happen, and I’d really rather my location information not end up in criminals’ hands
And so on. There’s no upside and tons of potential downsides, so why do it?
They don’t need it so I don’t provide it, that’s my primary reason and that should be enough.
It is enough. In fact, it’s better than the “you should trust your SO” argument which doesn’t make any sense.
There’s no upside
- Know when they come home or if they are stuck in traffic
- “oh you are still in the store can you get me …”
- security if they get kidnapped
It is insanely useful to know where your partner is. It is not necessary. It is still useful. I would not allow my partner 24/7 location information. It is still useful. I don’t trust any app/manufacturer that allows such a feature. It is still useful.
My SO can just call me, and they do about every other day when I’m inevitably stuck in traffic due to some accident during rush hour.
My SO and I call each other very frequently. It takes 10s to call and ask me if I’m stuck in traffic or something. Maybe it takes 5 to check an app, but saving a few seconds isn’t worth the unlikely but possible downsides.
Where’s the upside vs alternatives that don’t have those extra issues?
Is it realy so incomprehensible to see how useful it is? I feel like most people in this threat just close their eyes and scream. Yes you can call, yes you can find a different solution to every problem. But it is still fucking convenient to just know where somebody is without you having to ask them having to actively respond.
Yes, I can see how someone could consider it useful, but that always needs to be compared to alternatives and downsides. For example, the government knowing exactly where I am at all times could be useful if I get abducted or something, but there are so many potential downsides and limited upsides to that to the point that I can’t consider it a reasonable option, therefore it’s DOA.
So yeah, I don’t see location sharing as net useful, especially when the alternatives are almost equivalent in convenience and successfully solving the problem. My routine is the same almost every day, and deviations are really easy to communicate w/ a quick text.
Location sharing is a solution in search of a problem.
-They’ll be here when they be here
-The tracker is also a communicator. “Hey are you still at the store? Good can you grab…” doesn’t add that much time to that convo
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It sounds like the age-old “nothing to hide” argument.
It’s really not, though. For many couples (including my own relationship), this is something we talked about before implementing. We both decided that since we have the technology, we should use it to our advantage…so we do. Right now we’re using Life360, but I’ve already implemented Traccar (self-hosted and accessed via Home Assistant) for our older kids who have phones (Pinwheel), and I plan on extending that capability to my wife as well, so we can dump Life360.
If everyone consents and you trust the service, I guess that’s fine.
I just personally don’t see the benefit. My area has a really low crime rate, my kids don’t have phones and don’t go anywhere on their own anyway (they hang out w/ neighbors or we drive whem somewhere), and my SO and I just go between work and home and rarely anywhere else. If we have a unique schedule, we let each other know.
The only time I think I’d want it is if I’m doing something potentially risky, like going on a hike on my own, which I almost never do. That’s pretty much it.
When my kids get phones, I plan to follow the same policy. If they go somewhere, they need to let us know where they’re going, who a backup contact is (i.e. if they lose their phone or it dies), and when they’ll be home. I don’t need to know exactly where they are if I trust them to inform me if plans change.
I ride motorcycles. So I just leave it on by default because my wife worries when I go out. Rightly so. Cagers can be absolute fucking morons.
When my kids get phones, I plan to follow the same policy. If they go somewhere, they need to let us know where they’re going, who a backup contact is (i.e. if they lose their phone or it dies), and when they’ll be home. I don’t need to know exactly where they are if I trust them to inform me if plans change.
Our two eldest kids have Pinwheel phones. I was very up-front about what we can see from their devices on the parent portal side, and what they are and are not allowed to do with them. Their mom (my ex) doesn’t like it, but as I’m the one with primary custody and the one who pays for the devices, and the fact that the kids know I’m open about the phones’ capabilities, her opinion doesn’t really matter. I’m not malicious about it, either; she’s just a cunt.
Obviously each situation is different, but I’m very much on the side of trusting kids vs having some kind of leash. Sure, my kids would probably be fine w/ the caveat that I can see whatever they’re doing if that means they get a phone, but to me, it also shows that I don’t trust them, and that could mean they won’t come to me when something I can’t track happens. I personally value that two-way trust a lot more than whatever short-term benefits tracking gives me, and I go out of my way to tell my kids what I could do so they know how much I trust them.
So far it has worked out, but my kids aren’t teenagers yet (close), so we’ll see what happens once their social circle broadens a bit.
