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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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  • 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.

  • Interesting! Thanks for sharing.

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    If this was demanded of me, I would end the relationship immediately. That's absolutely not worth it.

  • 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.

  • Me an my GF have been sharing location for years now, it has never been an issue and often been handy to see if one of us is driving from work to home or finding each other in a festival or theme park etc.

    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

    In my 8-or-so years of using it with my partner, close friends, and some family, the only occasion where I turned it off was when visiting a jewelry store for an engagement ring.

    I know I have less privacy in principle, but I've never had an issue crop up so far.

  • If this was demanded of me, I would end the relationship immediately. That's absolutely not worth it.

    And what if you broke your leg and were lying in a ditch while chipmunks were eating your spleen, eh? How would anyone ever find you huh? Bet the egg is really on your face now!

  • And what if you broke your leg and were lying in a ditch while chipmunks were eating your spleen, eh? How would anyone ever find you huh? Bet the egg is really on your face now!

    Well then that's just too bad for me, isn't it?

    Obviously I have my phone on me so I could just dial 911. If your phone breaks when whatever occurs to you, then your spouse or whatever isn't going to be able to track your location and you're not going to be able to call 911 either. So either way you're fucked.

  • Well then that's just too bad for me, isn't it?

    Obviously I have my phone on me so I could just dial 911. If your phone breaks when whatever occurs to you, then your spouse or whatever isn't going to be able to track your location and you're not going to be able to call 911 either. So either way you're fucked.

    But what if a T-Rex swats your phone away but gets distracted trying to pick it up with his tiny arms, and forgets to eat you, huh? Bet you didn't consider that likely scenario eh Buster Brown?

  • Wtf? Is this the outcome of growing up with helicopter parents or where are those trust issues coming from?

    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.

  • Since you're one of the few people that admit to you and your partner using it: What do you think about the company knowing where you are at all times?

    Yes, somebody pointed that out already. I need to find out more about how it's done.

  • 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.

  • 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.

    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.

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    Even when I need the security aspect of tracking I'd share my location with my mother or a close friend rather than my partner.

  • 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.

  • 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.

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    Man I took my kids off location sharing when they got their first phones at 12. Shit is creepy.

    Just communicate!

  • Man I took my kids off location sharing when they got their first phones at 12. Shit is creepy.

    Just communicate!

    Exactly! My kids aren't getting phones until I trust them, and if I trust them, I don't need location sharing.

  • 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.

    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?

  • 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.

    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.

  • 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.

  • [Horses] Phones Ruined Everything

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    I found this really interesting and thought provoking. I loved the line how ultimate optimism is not always misplaced.
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    theoretically software support This. And it's not only due to drivers and much more due to them not having insourced software development and their outsourced developers not using Fairphones as their daily drivers.
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    You are a zionist so it's funny that you say that
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    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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    Just be sure to add only the people you want to be there. I've heard some people add others and it's a bit messy