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‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing

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  • It's only vile when you project insecurities or bad intent...

    We both know each other's passwords for everything. We use a shared database for it. We both know each other's phone, unlock codes and often through laziness will just use each other's phones for shit. We shared the same bank accounts, we don't have separate money. We share the same vehicles....etc

    What's mine is hers, what's hers is mine. Except literally.

    We also both have each other's location. What do we use this for? Essentially nothing except when one of us is traveling, or someone is feeling neurotic/worried. 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.

    We don't hide things from each other, we've explicitly built a relationship of openness and trust, brought on by us actually_not_ trusting each other for a long time. We are completely transparent, and you know what this has helped build? Trust. Know what it has torn down? Insecurities. It's been great.

    Would recommend.

    You were so untrusting you had to go to those lengths to make it so there is no way to lie to each other and you say that's a good thing?

  • 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.

  • 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.

    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.

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    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.

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    People don't have the emotional maturity to deal with this tool.

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    You can send it on a one-off basis in Signal. Share location, requested sparingly it can be done but seems like there are bigger issues by the time thats even necessary and coming up regularly

  • 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.

  • Therapy would be better for you than a panopticon.

    What if your partner wants to run away from you? Do you not trust that they would have a good reason?

    You're literally inventing scenarios.

  • 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

  • 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?

  • It's only vile when you project insecurities or bad intent...

    We both know each other's passwords for everything. We use a shared database for it. We both know each other's phone, unlock codes and often through laziness will just use each other's phones for shit. We shared the same bank accounts, we don't have separate money. We share the same vehicles....etc

    What's mine is hers, what's hers is mine. Except literally.

    We also both have each other's location. What do we use this for? Essentially nothing except when one of us is traveling, or someone is feeling neurotic/worried. 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.

    We don't hide things from each other, we've explicitly built a relationship of openness and trust, brought on by us actually_not_ trusting each other for a long time. We are completely transparent, and you know what this has helped build? Trust. Know what it has torn down? Insecurities. It's been great.

    Would recommend.

    I’m in the same place as you with my spouse, but we didn’t start with not trusting each other. I just never worry about my spouse knowing things about me—I cannot imagine what I wouldn’t tell her anyway.

    My spouse has (multiple) physical journals lying around the house. I would never read them—she doesn’t worry about hiding them.

  • Yep. This is one of those hard lines for me. And I feel like it's a red flag for anyone who demands it from a partner.

    I trust my partner and they trust me. I actively encourage them to do things without me, because I want them to be an independent person. I want them to have friends that I don't hang out with.

    I comment in a different part of this thread how my spouse and just share everything, but I complete get what you are saying.

  • 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.

  • 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.

    You don't need anything other than home assistant though, right? the companion apps already just do that

  • Starting this by saying: Using tracking apps to see what someone's doing 24/7 or worrying about them cheating is insane and is a solid NO, full stop.

    But I do understand why people use tracking apps, and I wish we had good FOSS alternatives. A tracking/location sharing app where the trackee can turn it on/off anytime they want (after using a password/biometrics, to prevent others from messing with it), so loved ones can be sure you made it to your destination.

    I don't want people stalking their kids, judging their friends for the places they go, surveiling if someone's a cheater, or worst of all, having their data be sold by the shitty companies that run these services.

    I've read stories that have scared me and made me wish I could do something like that when I'm out late. I had to (unfortunately) use Live360 during a field trip in another country cause the teachers needed to keep track of us. I understand safety-wise that these apps are vital

    I wish there was one that didn't require nearly every phone permission all the time.

  • 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.

  • 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 don't think enabling it is a good idea though. Yeah, they might be worried, but they need to learn to handle those thoughts. Feeding them can only make it worse.

  • 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.

    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.

  • Most people my age that I know have location tracking shared with SO’s. It’s considered a step in the relationship.

    It's be a step out of the relationship with me.

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    Routinely seen this cause drama between people with poor communication.

    Nosy friend with it? Get ready for I'm coming by or what are you doing there texts.

    know some people who use it to pick up drunk friends just in case. For emergencies. Do they use it like her? Noooooooopeeeee

    Most people lack the maturity for this. It skeeves me the fuck out.

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    M
    Sure, the internet is more practical, and the odds of being caught in the time required to execute a decent strike plan, even one as vague as: "we're going to Amerika and we're going to hit 50 high profile targets on July 4th, one in every state" (Dear NSA analyst, this is entirely hypothetical) so your agents spread to the field and start assessing from the ground the highest impact targets attainable with their resources, extensive back and forth from the field to central command daily for 90 days of prep, but it's being carried out on 270 different active social media channels as innocuous looking photo exchanges with 540 pre-arranged algorithms hiding the messages in the noise of the image bits. Chances of security agencies picking this up from the communication itself? About 100x less than them noticing 50 teams of activists deployed to 50 states at roughly the same time, even if they never communicate anything. HF (more often called shortwave) is well suited for the numbers game. A deep cover agent lying in wait, potentially for years. Only "tell" is their odd habit of listening to the radio most nights. All they're waiting for is a binary message: if you hear the sequence 3 17 22 you are to make contact for further instructions. That message may come at any time, or may not come for a decade. These days, you would make your contact for further instructions via internet, and sure, it would be more practical to hide the "make contact" signal in the internet too, but shortwave is a longstanding tech with known operating parameters.
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    G
    Obviously the law must be simple enough to follow so that for Jim’s furniture shop is not a problem nor a too high cost to respect it, but it must be clear that if you break it you can cease to exist as company. I think this may be the root of our disagreement, I do not believe that there is any law making body today that is capable of an elegantly simple law. I could be too naive, but I think it is possible. We also definitely have a difference on opinion when it comes to the severity of the infraction, in my mind, while privacy is important, it should not have the same level of punishments associated with it when compared to something on the level of poisoning water ways; I think that a privacy law should hurt but be able to be learned from while in the poison case it should result in the bankruptcy of a company. The severity is directly proportional to the number of people affected. If you violate the privacy of 200 million people is the same that you poison the water of 10 people. And while with the poisoning scenario it could be better to jail the responsible people (for a very, very long time) and let the company survive to clean the water, once your privacy is violated there is no way back, a company could not fix it. The issue we find ourselves with today is that the aggregate of all privacy breaches makes it harmful to the people, but with a sizeable enough fine, I find it hard to believe that there would be major or lasting damage. So how much money your privacy it's worth ? 6 For this reason I don’t think it is wise to write laws that will bankrupt a company off of one infraction which was not directly or indirectly harmful to the physical well being of the people: and I am using indirectly a little bit more strict than I would like to since as I said before, the aggregate of all the information is harmful. The point is that the goal is not to bankrupt companies but to have them behave right. The penalty associated to every law IS the tool that make you respect the law. And it must be so high that you don't want to break the law. I would have to look into the laws in question, but on a surface level I think that any company should be subjected to the same baseline privacy laws, so if there isn’t anything screwy within the law that apple, Google, and Facebook are ignoring, I think it should apply to them. Trust me on this one, direct experience payment processors have a lot more rules to follow to be able to work. I do not want jail time for the CEO by default but he need to know that he will pay personally if the company break the law, it is the only way to make him run the company being sure that it follow the laws. For some reason I don’t have my usual cynicism when it comes to this issue. I think that the magnitude of loses that vested interests have in these companies would make it so that companies would police themselves for fear of losing profits. That being said I wouldn’t be opposed to some form of personal accountability on corporate leadership, but I fear that they will just end up finding a way to create a scapegoat everytime. It is not cynicism. I simply think that a huge fine to a single person (the CEO for example) is useless since it too easy to avoid and if it really huge realistically it would be never paid anyway so nothing usefull since the net worth of this kind of people is only on the paper. So if you slap a 100 billion file to Musk he will never pay because he has not the money to pay even if technically he is worth way more than that. Jail time instead is something that even Musk can experience. In general I like laws that are as objective as possible, I think that a privacy law should be written so that it is very objectively overbearing, but that has a smaller fine associated with it. This way the law is very clear on right and wrong, while also giving the businesses time and incentive to change their practices without having to sink large amount of expenses into lawyers to review every minute detail, which is the logical conclusion of the one infraction bankrupt system that you seem to be supporting. Then you write a law that explicitally state what you can do and what is not allowed is forbidden by default.
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    I still get calls, but I can't see details (e.g. just the phone number, not the caller).
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    darkdarkhouse@lemmy.sdf.orgD
    The terror will continue until you join us, then we will be nice, I promise!
  • lemm.ee is shutting down at the end of this month

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    vopyr@lemmy.worldV
    If I know correctly, it is not possible to export posts, comments, replies.
  • Researchers develop recyclable, healable electronics

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    Isn't the most common failure modes of electronics capacitors dying, followed closely by heat in chips? This research sounds cool and all.
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    Oh sorry, my mind must have been a bit foggy when I read that. We agree 100%