‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing
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As a fairly privacy conscious person, I also expect and accept that it's happening too. I don't think you can be privacy conscious and not accept that. You have to be ignorant to think you can hide it all. I do my best to keep as much data out of their hands as possible though. I don't agree with it.
When I say I don't accept, I don't mean I live in denial, I mean I don't acquiesce - I resist it, whether that be by avoiding services/products, paying for premium, installing ad blockers or modding things to remove telemetry.
I am aware that my phone company knows where I am and I'm on cameras, but I'm not going to make it easy for the next Cambridge Analytica.
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After 30 years of marriage, my wife floated the idea of turning this on. I looked at her like she had two heads.
Why would anyone be willfully surveilled? You know its not just your partner that has access to that data when you have location services enabled.
Found Hank Hill's neighbor, Dale.
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To me it's weird that people have issues with this. My wife and I, married 35 years, share each other's locations because if something bad happened we would want to be able to find each other. I don't even give a second thought to, "...and I can make sure she isn't cheating on me."
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I have my location shared with my wife because while I was working out of the house I got tired of answering the same text message ("how far from home are you so I can start dinner?") every afternoon. She's the only one in the world I have no secrets from, so I just never turned it off. I honestly don't know if she still knows I've got it shared with her.
To me it's weird that people have issues with this. My wife and I, married 35 years, share each other's locations because if something bad happened we would want to be able to find each other. I don't even give a second thought to, "...and I can make sure she isn't cheating on me."
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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.
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Me and my partner share locations. Never once have we done this. It's purely a logistical thing. 10x faster to check someone's location when you're supposed to meet them instead of testing them "wya".
Yeah, exactly. So great to be able to say, oh, she's about 15 minutes away, so I'll start making dinner. Much easier and safer than texting while driving, too.
We originally set it up so she could make sure I wasn't laying in a ditch somewhere from a cycling crash.
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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.
The original commenter explained they and their spouse share their location.
You said it was a breach of trust and privacy.
My question was “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’.”
I understand now that you didn’t mean that it was a breach of trust and privacy literally, obviously they’ve both opted in, but you used that to express your own preference.
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Same. For this to be a problem, you must first have other problems.
How old are you guys, if you don't mind me asking? It seems that generally younger people don't see this as an innate violation of privacy, where older people feel quite surveilled and even like they're being viewed as untrustworthy for someone to ask this of them.
I've never cheated on my spouse (not even close), I've never felt any inclination to lie about my whereabouts. I can see the safety aspect of this, logically. I would feel offended if my spouse asked me to be a dot on his phone, as if he was asking to own me. We share a home, a child, a bank account, a car, but we don't share location. I don't even keep my location activated for my own use unless I'm actively navigating somewhere new.
We've got plenty of "normal" problems, but none of them lead me to want his location. I simply trust him enough. It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems
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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.
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To share my location with my partner I need to share it with a third part also and I'm pretty selective about that so I never even signed up for this kind of thing.
I use location services but just leave them off until I need them. I'm not super hard to find anyways
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All they would have to do is turn location sharing off, and change passwords. More likely they would talk about it and agree to split rather than just run off. You know, like adults.
You are obviously not a woman.
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How old are you guys, if you don't mind me asking? It seems that generally younger people don't see this as an innate violation of privacy, where older people feel quite surveilled and even like they're being viewed as untrustworthy for someone to ask this of them.
I've never cheated on my spouse (not even close), I've never felt any inclination to lie about my whereabouts. I can see the safety aspect of this, logically. I would feel offended if my spouse asked me to be a dot on his phone, as if he was asking to own me. We share a home, a child, a bank account, a car, but we don't share location. I don't even keep my location activated for my own use unless I'm actively navigating somewhere new.
We've got plenty of "normal" problems, but none of them lead me to want his location. I simply trust him enough. It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems
I simply trust him enough
but what people are saying is it has little to do with trust: it’s a utility… in fact, the trust is flipped: i trust my partner to have my location, and only look at it for things like checking how far away i am for my benefit
It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems
you’re allowed to feel that, but that’s absolutely not true. given the safety and utility aspect, it FEELS to me like if you don’t trust your partner to have and not abuse your location data then you must have other problems
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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.
You can self host location sharing. I do it with Nextcloud. Home assistant can do it too.
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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.
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Vile.
I trust my wife, and she trusts me. We trust each other not to ask for stupid brain-poisoning shit that humans weren't meant to have access to that could one day blow up horribly.
I don't have her passwords, she doesn't have mine. Our phones are locked. I could technically see what she's doing online I suppose via traffic snooping in the router logs but the day I feel the urge to do something like that is the day I kill myself for having abandoned basic moral principles.
We're apes, we have brains built for avoiding snakes in tall grass and finding water and berries. You poison yourself with surveillance, you feed your worst and most destructive impulses. Practice keeping secrets, practice being okay with not knowing. Trust isn't surveillance, trust is knowing that if something fucking mattered you'd be told.
edit: I want my wife to be able to break my heart because if she does she'll have a good reason for doing so. That is what trust is.
Uhhh, I trust her which is precisely why she has my passwords. Are you guys teenagers or something?
Also, location sharing is literally a form of communication. What if there’s an emergency?
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The peace of mind knowing that your significant other didn't just die in a car crash part way to their destination and are still making progress is significant.
Bless you but the moment I start being afraid of my partner dying everytime they leave the house will be the moment I'm getting back in touch with my psychologist.
Your sanguine naïveté is enviable.
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If my partner could check my location at any time, how would I keep bday and anniversary gifts secret? The places where I go to buy things for her are not places I would normally go. She only has to randomly check one time when I'm at an unusual location for her to ask why and then I have to lie. Not worth it.
We use temporary sharing (can limit to one hour) when meeting somewhere. Beyond that, it's a potential liability.
Example: she once got upset that I wanted to go to the mail room (apt building) alone and didn't want her to go with me. She wanted to know what I was hiding. Turned out to be her bday gift and it was just in the commercial packaging with a shipping label. I let her go get it and she's never been suspicious of my motives since (this was at the very start of our relationship and we hadn't established the level of trust that we have now).
Anyway, again, the one-hour sharing is all we need.
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How old are you guys, if you don't mind me asking? It seems that generally younger people don't see this as an innate violation of privacy, where older people feel quite surveilled and even like they're being viewed as untrustworthy for someone to ask this of them.
I've never cheated on my spouse (not even close), I've never felt any inclination to lie about my whereabouts. I can see the safety aspect of this, logically. I would feel offended if my spouse asked me to be a dot on his phone, as if he was asking to own me. We share a home, a child, a bank account, a car, but we don't share location. I don't even keep my location activated for my own use unless I'm actively navigating somewhere new.
We've got plenty of "normal" problems, but none of them lead me to want his location. I simply trust him enough. It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems
I'm 40 and have done this with partners.
But also, they and I have an open relationship. If they found me in the bed of another, the reaction would an excited inquiry of if I had fun.
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I simply trust him enough
but what people are saying is it has little to do with trust: it’s a utility… in fact, the trust is flipped: i trust my partner to have my location, and only look at it for things like checking how far away i am for my benefit
It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems
you’re allowed to feel that, but that’s absolutely not true. given the safety and utility aspect, it FEELS to me like if you don’t trust your partner to have and not abuse your location data then you must have other problems
Seems like the underlying tension is wether being surveiled at all is inherently a violation.
If it is, then your partner doing it might feel like a lack of trust.
for my benefit
Its not a benefit if you don't like being trackedIf not, then it's just a practical tool, might as well use the data if it's getting captured anyway.
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Uhhh, I trust her which is precisely why she has my passwords. Are you guys teenagers or something?
Also, location sharing is literally a form of communication. What if there’s an emergency?
Yes we're teenagers. We've been married 15 years, ceremony was when we were three.
Privacy is important, have you never kept a diary? Do you film therapy sessions lest your partner not know what you discussed? Shit with the door open? You don't need justification for wanting privacy, you need privacy so when you have a good reason for it nothing looks different.
What if there’s an emergency?
What if there is? Get help, that's an insane fear to live with. If I am unconscious there's nothing to do anyway, the hospital or whatever will find her details in my purse and call. What the fuck am I going to do, sit there watching the dot on the map and calling 000 if it stops moving? You are a lunatic, we have society to take care of us while we're out and about and emergency beacons if you're like camping beyond the black stump or sailing the Pacific.
