‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing
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Could you explain what you mean by calling it an oppressive custom? Personally, I love being with someone. It has the upside of me getting to enjoy companionship with another human being, and it doesn't feel like handcuffs. Sometimes I have to do things that I wouldn't do otherwise for the sake of my partner's feelings/wellbeing, but isn't that the case in all relationships? Romantic, familial, platonic, or otherwise? If my partner wants me to do something I'm truly uncomfortable with (like allowing them to track my location), and we can't agree on a compromise, I'd just end that relationship and find someone I'm more compatible with.
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I'll toss this phone in a Blendtec blender
Oof, iSmoke. Don't breathe this!
I think they did an iPhone, I know for a fact they did an iPad.
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Meanwhile, I often work with immediate risk of death or injury and, by law, I can not be equipped with a panic button for rescue purposes, as it is deemed unlawful surveillance of the worker.
I am supposed to warn in advance what work I will be doing and agree on a reasonable time window for it to be done safely, before having to call in again to say I am not yet dead and if the task is done or not.
I think I would make an exception to that law for a panic button or other emergency device that only transmits when activated, like a ship's EPIRB or an aircraft's ELT.
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Putting aside how much of a red flag that is,
Is there any foss self-hosted version of these location sharing services?
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I think I would make an exception to that law for a panic button or other emergency device that only transmits when activated, like a ship's EPIRB or an aircraft's ELT.
It's strange. Apparently it is one of those situations where the possibilty of something very useful being easily abused by companies to spy on their people is too great.
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Yeah right, rather than stand your ground, lie in your partners face.
Oh guys I'm kidding of course. I was going with the OP's theme here.
Should have added something like '/s' I guess?
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Meanwhile, I often work with immediate risk of death or injury and, by law, I can not be equipped with a panic button for rescue purposes, as it is deemed unlawful surveillance of the worker.
I am supposed to warn in advance what work I will be doing and agree on a reasonable time window for it to be done safely, before having to call in again to say I am not yet dead and if the task is done or not.
by law, I can not be equipped with a panic button for rescue purposes, as it is deemed unlawful surveillance of the worker
That makes no sense. What country and what law? For one example, GDPR has an exemption for cases like that. And for another, how can it be surveillance when the communication is initiated by the worker as part of their job?
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The recipent is your partner.
And provider of whatever service you use to share your location. Being a bit paranoid about your privacy in this day and age is not just fearmongering and tinfoil-hats.
It can be extremely usefull for example for grabbing shit in a mall
Or communicate in advance that it'll take 30 minutes for you to find your shit and then meet up at a cafe, by car, at lobby or whatever. Live location doesn't add anything to that, assuming it even works reliably enough inside buildings.
Live location doesn’t add anything
Yeah, seriously, how did society function before GPS?
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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.
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But well I kinda wanna surprise here and for that I need to drive somewhere where I normally don't go, so now I gotta find an excuse just incase she checks my location. Or I just turn of my Phone for an hour or two
Eww this is just weird you have to think about that.
Mhe, it's only once in the last 10 years that I have to think about it and it's an easy thing to solve.
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If the only thing stopping your partner from cheating is location sharing then you've got problems.
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I am of multiple minds on it.
I very much do like the idea of sharing your location (once you are in a committed relationship). Knowing when your partner is coming home or stuck at work or at the grocery store is useful. Same with knowing that someone can check in on you if something horrible happens. And I have 100% shared my location temporarily for that.
The problem is that... you don't always want to do that. And explaining that becomes a mess.
At its core it is opt in versus opt out but it also can trigger the kinds of conversations that are really better suited to a lot later in a relationship. Like with prenups. There are a lot of REALLY REALLY REALLY good reasons to have them but it is the kind of topic that you can't even raise without having the implication of "I don't trust you".
I just message my partner like a troglodyte.
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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.
It's simply unrealistic and excessive to expect people to stop using one of the most accessible services that comes built in to most phones, and has features that cannot easily be replaced. All my privacy and data options are restricted in maps, but I'm sure they still collect some data. I have no intent though to stop using a service that is incredibly important to organizing and planning my life (traffic, community driven reports of detours, construction, cops, etc, weather specific reroutes, fuel efficiency route selection) because someone online has absolutely unrealistic expectations of others' data privacy. Navigating to someone in maps is not the same as uploading a picture of them. Google sees my location and my destinations already. All that changes when I turn on my location tracking is that so does my wife. Your argument doesn't make sense and is unreasonable.
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Live location doesn’t add anything
Yeah, seriously, how did society function before GPS?
Society has apparently forgotten the good old 'call me when you get there'-thing. My wife travels by car with our kids now and then for 300-400km at a time and it's nice to get messages/calls like "we're at X, stopped for coffee" or "we got here". That's all I need and it's also a part of relationship and communication. There's no value on following a dot on the map. They even had a small accident one time and I heard about it soon enough. Even if I had their live location it would mean absolutely nothing as they were over an hour away, it was way more important to get proper help there before notifying me instead of getting distracted by my calls/messages at that time.
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by law, I can not be equipped with a panic button for rescue purposes, as it is deemed unlawful surveillance of the worker
That makes no sense. What country and what law? For one example, GDPR has an exemption for cases like that. And for another, how can it be surveillance when the communication is initiated by the worker as part of their job?
I'm in Portugal.
I've asked if such devices could be supplied and I was given pretty much the same explanation I supplied here.
Strangely enough, vehicles can be legally tracked, in real time, yet the company I work at has some union agreement that prevents such installation in the work vehicles.
It's a mess.
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Putting aside how much of a red flag that is,
Is there any foss self-hosted version of these location sharing services?
Home Assistant seems to work well. Depends what functions you want.
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That's really not the type of person she is, or the type of relationship we have. She might well know that I'm still sharing with her, but it's not because she's controlling or untrusting. It would be because she had a reason to check recently.
I was kidding BTW
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I was kidding BTW
It's so hard to tell. I've been online for almost 30 years and I still can't tell most of the time.
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Could you explain what you mean by calling it an oppressive custom? Personally, I love being with someone. It has the upside of me getting to enjoy companionship with another human being, and it doesn't feel like handcuffs. Sometimes I have to do things that I wouldn't do otherwise for the sake of my partner's feelings/wellbeing, but isn't that the case in all relationships? Romantic, familial, platonic, or otherwise? If my partner wants me to do something I'm truly uncomfortable with (like allowing them to track my location), and we can't agree on a compromise, I'd just end that relationship and find someone I'm more compatible with.
It's hard for me to express it clearly but you description doesn't seem to include an overwhelming sense that being in any kind of relationship like that MUST also mean a exclusivity of intimacy. Complete with paranoia over whether you will ever violate this hard line and become a cheater.
And I'm not against some people wanting that. I'm against that being the default understanding for almost all sexual relationships, even when the sexuality part dies and then you become a prisoner of the relationship, torn between convenience of staying together and being sexually unfulfilled, forever.
Not to mention all the policing that comes around hunting violators of these pacts. And worse, the societal skewing pushing everyone into these exclusivity arrangements. Where I work, just 20 years ago it was well known that married people favored each other and the promotion were far more likely for married than the celibates. There are often many other forms of incentives, a lot of them financial, disfavorable toward celibates.
These types of arrangement used to be inescapable literally, to the point of many killing their spouses and elites having wars over the right to escape, and still we barely are able to escape the oppressive institution and its demands.
