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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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    a common way to keep tabs on friends, family and romantic partners
    so I allow the app to alert him each time I reach my front door. In a disappointingly heteronormative and retrograde move, I’m more interested in knowing when he goes out – where’s he off to now? – and set up my own notifications accordingly.
    Having grown up with the internet, gen Z are, generally, more comfortable sharing their data online; Snapchat, the social media platform notoriously most popular with younger users, has long incorporated location sharing with its Snap Maps feature.

    Does anyone even have a private moment at all?
    Also if I were to cheat I'd leave my phone in a very specific spot if I can. Faux location services may work, but mostly switching to a feature phone seems to be secret trick that shuts down these app fueled nightmare.

    Oh, sorry, the battery is down I had to switch to my old phone for a moment!
    When did we stop having private moments and thoughts?
    I like tech when it aides me, but recently it has been feeding off my personal time and even some order of thoughts in ways it didn't do before. It almost feels like it tries to fix and set up human emotions in ways that are forced.

    Do you want technology to replace normal communication and socialisation skills? Or does it even matter to you that it is what happens now. Remember that only a few years before nobody followed you all the day, and even the internet access was relegated to a computer room. How far have we come from that?

  • Then brake up with her!
    Why you stay with partner that do not trust you?
    Yea not everything works perfect inba relationship, but people should allow some space.

    Why you stay with partner that do not trust you?

    Because the dating scene sucks.

    That's sort of the irony of it all. People are terrified of being cheated on, because it implies their partner has an attractive alternative they found with mysterious ease. Meanwhile, they're stuck trawling for singles in the gutter.

    But it's illusionary. Hot MILFs are not, in fact, In Your Area Waiting To Fuck. Being single, particularly when you're older, is miserable for a lot of people.

  • 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.

    If there's an emergency it will be known regardless. Levels of paranoia that are not justified; how many emergencies have you been in where an Internet connected device is so important in the shortest amount of time? Or at all. No. You might need a phone. But not an app in particular.

    And for long term emergencies an fm/am radio is a better tool than the Internet.

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    Do we all really think this is a great idea when fascism and toxic masculinity are catastrophically growing globally like a late stage mestastized cancer?

    Do you think enabling all those men to abusively control their spouses is just the forward march of technological progress?

  • Its definitely a huge issue at hand.

    I don't disagree, but it's not the issue being discussed? 🤷♂

  • they have control over giving that information to the 3rd party, but they don't have any control after that, over how the information is used. with that in mind, do you think they have control over their information?

    they are choosing to allow a 3rd party access to that information

    that's right, allowing that 3rd party. but did they choose to share it with the business partners of that 3rd party too? are they aware of what is happening in the background? even if they didn't just register-accept-next-next-finish it, most people have no idea about it, because there's so little discourse about it.

    like, when I registered to facebook many years ago I had no idea what I was doing. I was using their services a lot for years, blissfully unaware that facebook is a shit company. and what control did I have at the end? the illusion of deletion.

    with that in mind, do you think they have control over their information?

    It’s not about what I think, they have control over whether to share their location data with a 3rd party or not. By definition that is control. They also have control to stop sharing that data at any time.

    Do you have anything to support that the specific system used by the original commenter is using that data in a manner not agreed to when they shared it or in a way that the original commenter doesn’t agree to?

    Or are you applying your own personal preferences and beliefs to someone else’s situation?

  • Further most people don't know they are in abusive relationships even if it is obvious to others around them so the casually dismissive argument "well abusive couples shouldn't use it" is a trash argument.

    Whether you know it or not does not change the message. Abusive couples shouldn't not use this app, they shouldn't be couples.

  • 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.

    Sounds like you guys have some serious trust issues. If sharing your location with each other devolves that quickly, it ain’t the tech making problems.

  • a common way to keep tabs on friends, family and romantic partners
    so I allow the app to alert him each time I reach my front door. In a disappointingly heteronormative and retrograde move, I’m more interested in knowing when he goes out – where’s he off to now? – and set up my own notifications accordingly.
    Having grown up with the internet, gen Z are, generally, more comfortable sharing their data online; Snapchat, the social media platform notoriously most popular with younger users, has long incorporated location sharing with its Snap Maps feature.

    Does anyone even have a private moment at all?
    Also if I were to cheat I'd leave my phone in a very specific spot if I can. Faux location services may work, but mostly switching to a feature phone seems to be secret trick that shuts down these app fueled nightmare.

    Oh, sorry, the battery is down I had to switch to my old phone for a moment!
    When did we stop having private moments and thoughts?
    I like tech when it aides me, but recently it has been feeding off my personal time and even some order of thoughts in ways it didn't do before. It almost feels like it tries to fix and set up human emotions in ways that are forced.

    Do you want technology to replace normal communication and socialisation skills? Or does it even matter to you that it is what happens now. Remember that only a few years before nobody followed you all the day, and even the internet access was relegated to a computer room. How far have we come from that?

    Snapchat, the social media platform notoriously most popular with younger users, has long incorporated location sharing with its Snap Maps feature

    Fuck me. I dont even share my first and last name with any social media site, much less my photo. My current location? The fuck is wrong with people?

  • Whether you know it or not does not change the message. Abusive couples shouldn't not use this app, they shouldn't be couples.

    My point is when people use this argument "Well abusive couples just shouldn't be couples!" it is a way to dismiss the danger of never ending surveillance that makes an INCREDIBLY problematic leap of condemning people falling into abusive relationships to simply suffer, tough luck... and it demonstrates a callous, ineffective and frankly worrying understanding of how abusive relationships formed in general.

  • My point is when people use this argument "Well abusive couples just shouldn't be couples!" it is a way to dismiss the danger of never ending surveillance that makes an INCREDIBLY problematic leap of condemning people falling into abusive relationships to simply suffer, tough luck... and it demonstrates a callous, ineffective and frankly worrying understanding of how abusive relationships formed in general.

    It doesn't dismiss anything. It's just a statement of fact. Certainly in certain contexts it could be interpreted that way.

  • 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.

    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.

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    My wife and I have location sharing enabled in case something happens to one of us. We usually don't use it, but its good to have when we need to meet up at an unfamiliar place after something goes sideways for one of us.

    But if your SO doesn't trust you enough to allow you private moments and would accuse you of cheating, your relationship isn't based on trust and thus is very weak.

  • 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.

  • My wife and I have our location shared with each other 24/7. Furthermore, my sister also has mine and my wife has her sister's. It has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with safety. Perhaps the real trust is not assuming your partner will use your location to control you.

    Being tracked is control enough for me. But I do understand it in dangerous situations, returning through forest at night etc.

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    Install a ROM on your phone and claim it no longer works on there 🙂

  • If a partner demand they have it on to prove they're not cheating, then they should be looking for a different partner.

    I've already solved that by not finding a partner 😎👎

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    Quit cheating or split up. It’s not complicated.

  • Third parties is plural. English kinda hard sometimes lowkey

    Apple’s built-in location sharing is not sent to advertisers.

  • Very hinged lemmy comment.

    If my wife knows my location it’s an invasion of privacy

    I seriously doubt any of the losers in this thread have been in a loving relationship before.

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    This would be better suited in some casual ranting community. Or one concerned with tech bros. I think it's completely off topic here.
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    Me too, except I didn't get the email saying my pro vpn was about to expire, which might be my fault ofc. Gotta check the oarameters It's really good IMO and I'd recommend it fullheartedly, Switzerland has some of the best laws out there too concerning privacy too.