>When Elliot doesn’t show up at the coffee shop, Thelma starts to worry. Because Trusted Contacts works even if a phone is offline, Thelma requests Elliot’s location and in five minutes can see that his last known location was in the middle of the canyon. Thelma calls the nearest ranger station, they send out a rescue party, and find Elliot in a few hours.
Yeah because that has totally been a problem I've been needing a solution for.
It can take many hours to surmise that someone has been kidnapped. Getting people to pay direct attention to someone's whereabouts, without having to constantly nag the person, is a huge win.
Anyone who has ever expected an at-risk person to make contact at an estimated time can relate how worrying it is when that person is delayed.
> But cant police use the tracking info already once you report someone missing?
1. Police can, but won't until they consider it a missing person scenario, which oftdn involves considerable delay, at least for an adult -- and that's even if the police happen to prioritize that case.
2. For many people in various places for a variety of reasons, even aside from delay issues, the police aren't the first people they'd want to rely on. Or even on that list at all.
> This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama
There is some risk of that, but there's also empowerment of people to create their own effective support networks of real, personal trust.
Late reply: there are 800,000 missing persons cases in the US each year, but 12,000,000 victims of intimate partner violence.
I just suspect that your solution to the smaller problem will make something that's a much larger problem (as in, more than an order of magnitude larger) worse.
I have that use case. I often go bushwalking and always text my wife from the trailhead to let her know which track I'm going to be on.
This product is a much better version of that system. It's impervious to me forgetting to send the text and gives an accurate location rather than "somewhere in the general area served by this trailhead".
I'm often hiking too and my battery almost always dies halfway through. If my family members were to initiate a rescue effort anytime they can't reach me, I'd probably have to stop doing anything.
Then again, I'm in Europe, so crime rates are virtually zero, and the only risk is spraining an ankle or something.
I like convenience of having the GPS, so I carry a battery pack for the phone.
I'm also paranoid, so I carry a Cospas-Sarsat PLB as well. But you need to be conscious, and have at least one arm working, to activate that.
Hikes can still be dangerous, especially in the mountains. Hereabouts, pretty much every year several people get seriously injured on one of the trails, usually by tripping and falling down the slope; and in most years, there's at least one fatality.
Usually it's because people veer off the trail or do something similarly dangerous, but sometimes it's just dangerous conditions (e.g. ice) on regular, well-maintained trails that are normally safe, or just bad luck. Better safe than sorry.
I see your point and agree with you. Their PR department should have come up with a better example. However, they didn't want to offend or scare anyone with a more realistic application of this feature (to prevent abductions and missing people), so I understand where they're coming from.
North of SF in Marin this past Saturday, one of the competitors in the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile race decided to give up and go home without telling anybody.
His parents were at the finish line waiting and, apparently out of shame, he did not tell them, nor did he answer any calls. So, the organizers sent out an emergency search and rescue team. It was not for another two and a half hours that they realized that the competitor was sitting at home and choosing not to answer his phone.
Coincidentally (or not), Facebook presented this as an upcoming Messenger feature today [1]
> If you can't find a friend and become worried about their safety, Messenger could one day let you send a request to see their location. A timer would begin on the friend's phone that gives them a chance to approve or deny the request. If the timer expires on its own, their location would be sent to you automatically.
> Invite a trusted friend to virtually walk you home if you feel unsafe
As a parent, I find this tremendously useful. This is specially important for people in certain countries where walking/driving home at night is realistically dangerous.
Seems like false sense of security. It only updates every 10 minutes or so. If you are really worried have them just call you and put their phone in their pocket. That way you can listen in and call 911 if needed.
Waiting 10 minutes for a GPS update doesn't seem to actually increase safety in any noticeable way.
I haven't downloaded the app myself. However, I was under the impression the 'virtual walk' was some separate feature that when turned on, allows the person to monitor your whereabouts in near real-time. (like could watch a tiny dot moving on a map as you walk).
One update every 10 minutes is way too infrequent. I feel like the majority of walks people could use this with would take less than 10 minutes ...
I go out for mega long bike rides in areas with very spotty cell coverage (Silicon Valley). This app is great because when my spouse wants to know where I am she can initiate the request, and I can keep my hands on the handlebars and keep rolling. I only wish they had thought to allow choices other than 'phone ring, wait 5 minutes'. I'd have prefered to set the notification type and delay. I hope the GPS battery drain for this feature is low (as compared with Garmin Connect, Strava or Glympse). 10 minute intervals sounds great.
Google is already tracking your location all the time if you're in the market for this product. This just exposes that data for what seems like a very useful user feature.
I realized this (well, "realized"... I knew it, but it became very creepy) the other day, when my phone popped up a notification while I was in a restaurant, saying "enjoying <restaurant name>? Why not take some photos for people to see?" or something like that.
I've lately been getting into the habit of turning location services off unless I actually need them on, and I would recommend it. It's a shame my phone gets my location behind my back without any indication by default.
You're lucky. A more creepy way of getting enlightened is having Google Now tell you, "I see you're at work, and it's about your usual time to head home. Traffic is heavy on the usual route, though, so it might take 15 minutes longer than normal."
(This all without you ever telling which location is your work and which is home.)
It always has for me, and not in tiny-font or legal language either:
"To help you through your day, Google needs to: Use and store your location for traffic alerts, directions, and more. User your synced calendars, Gmail, Chrome, and Google data for reminders and other suggestions."
This topic does come up a lot here, and yet this is as direct and concise a way to put it as I can imagine. I wonder what those who have been surprised by the services they have opted into would suggest to improve their understanding of what they are potentially agreeing to?
Yes, it is opt-in, which is good. But I feel that for a casual user "use and store your location" doesn't fully get across the point that it's going to track your location in near real-time and make inferences like "this place is your home" about it.
And this is a general problem - people share all kinds of private information about themselves, without full understanding of the kind of analysis that is possible on that data these days.
I personally don't have a problem with the tech (and I've used Latitude way back, so it's not like any of it is new).
I actually really like answering the questions they'll give you sometimes about places you've been. Did that restaurant last night have a great cocktail selection? Was the store handicap accessible? Great info for people to be able to look up and it makes a lot of sense to crowd source, and is probably more reliable than reviews which are so heavily selected for people with extreme opinions.
It's always amazing to me how often Google takes something they... already had... renames it, and then announces it as a brand new thing. I used to use this six years ago, it was called Google Latitude.
User experience matters, and this works very differently from how Google Latitude worked. Digital products are not about revealing the truth stored in database records. They're elaborate fictions we tell each other about meaningless database records.
Used as intended this sounds like a great idea. However used by an abusive significant other or parent (even just an overbearing parent) it seems pretty scary. To mitigate the potential harm I would hope for two things
1. Make it hard/impossible to be forever telling your location to someone (it's unclear if that's what the feel unsafe mode does in the first place, or if it just broadcasts it once)
2. Make it easy to 'enter an alternate location' to tell the inquirer
An abuser would know if the device was failing to report a location, or if the victim were to turn off the system, and could take action accordingly.
When user consent can be subverted, otherwise benign opt-in features that are deployed and marketed ubiquitously can have unforeseen consequences.
That said there is a utilitarian way to look at this, that for more situations it helps parents to keep their kids safe. The ethical question is far from cut and dry.
> An abuser would know if the device was failing to report a location, or if the victim were to turn off the system, and could take action accordingly.
As much as we would like, technology will not solve trust issues in any relationship.
Well, no, but it doesn't have to facilitate them. Introducing a service that very obviously empowers abusers requires that the abused can be protected.
I can't believe the amount of effort invested in this more cumbersome, much more specific use case solution rather than just bringing back Latitude -- a fully functional product (and exactly the same under the hood) that existed 6 years ago.
I trust my trusted contacts -- let me share my location all the time. (No, some backwater tab in the G+ app does not count.)
Yeah for me it's overlay in the maps app or bust. I liked opening google maps and seeing all my friends and family. The option to share only city-level location was enough to assuage any feelings of creepiness. And I know I'm on the fringe here, but I was also quite partial to the fact that it had an API.
I made the same complaint to a Googler friend - but he showed me his copy of Maps complete with contact's locations. I assumed it would be coming soon in a future update, but this was more than a year ago.
Sorry, I think you missed the context from the parent post.
This is just the same as the Location tab in Google+ (which used to be a separate app, Latitude) - it's only contacts who have chosen to share their location, but integrated into Maps.
I use the G+ version. Its useful for my partner or I to check each others location e.g. your cooking dinner and want to decide to wait or eat. You quickly check the app and you can see if they are at the office etc.
When I've discussed, generally people steer towards the creepy side of being tracked and dont like it. Maybe this version finds a middle ground as it's selling it as 'keeping you safe' while giving Google the right to track your location to sell better targeted ads. Really, the latter is what this is all about.
If you think all that data is going to be used for is ads, you're probably mistaken.
All that data is stored. They know all your contacts, how you write, what your interests are, where you go every day. What if suddenly the country your in makes it illegal to do X, or feel Z. They decide to arrest everyone who meets the criteria, and there's nothing you can do.
Although, you are correct now, it is ads. But the risk is SO great I really don't understand not taking precautions
> Although, you are correct now, it is ads. But the risk is SO great I really don't understand not taking precautions
I'm a bit nonchalant, I suspect because I work in marketing and see this as trying to get more relevant ads to me. And I'm always interested when ads show up to see what triggered said ad where obvious.
For the potential for abuse, it is a concern. I feel the key is we have a choice on a service like this. And what seems a slightly strange opinion, I am more OK with companies collecting this type of information but would be disturbed if I knew the government was generally accessing it without court order.
Really if your that worried about big brother you should not be carrying around a mobile phone at all. Governments already have ways to track location and activate mics in the background, so in that way its nothing new, now we also have the information.
If the government decides to "dissappear" you, there's very little you can do. If you've been sharing your location with your family, they might be able to do something. If you've been publishing your activities, it's even more likely that your family can publicize your disappearance and help you.
So, in a way, this app is protecting you against an abusive government.
I use the G+ version too and the downside to it is that it only has one use case which is "always allow people I authorize to see my location" and the only way to hide yourself is to remove permissions which is apparent to the person seeking your location. I've never had/wanted to hide my location from someone I've permitted to see it but I can see there being a use-case for it.
The Trusted Contacts app allows you to grant people permission to ask for your location or for you to push those people your location if you feel the need. If someone asks your location who is permitted, it prompts you to approve or deny the location request and then times-out and grants it after a few minutes. The whole ask for permission to ask for your location seems awkward at best.
This grant/timeout thing completely defeats the reason why my wife and I use the G+ location sharing which is to avoid the "where are you? when will you be home?" interaction.
It's inevitable that the forthcoming iOS version will require location history to be turned on for one's Google account. Therefore, I'd much prefer another cross-platform means of providing this information.
Owntracks hasn't been too bad for this; there are clients for iOS and Android and the the backend is self-hosted.
The only problem I've encountered with it is that the Android client has shown some instability from time to time, with high battery drain or missed location updates.
It would depend on where you are. Here in Utah my cell service goes out within the first 5 minutes of the hike I do by my house. The hike itself is about 2 hours in and an hour out.
Hereabouts, I don't get mobile service on most hikes, but I do get it on many trailheads. So, at the very least, it would tell them which trail I was on when I disappeared.
This may be a thing that is specific to local conditions, though. It so happens that I live in upper Snoqualmie River valley, which has trailheads for many of the best and most popular hiking trails in the area. So, naturally, this is where most of my hikes are. And the towers that provide signal for the towns in the valley are on the surrounding mountaintops, so they provide coverage for a good chunk of wilderness around, as well.
>Because Trusted Contacts works even if a phone is offline, Thelma requests Elliot’s location and in five minutes can see that his last known location was in the middle of the canyon.
The cynic in me thinks this whole use case is intended to normalize the idea of a company always knowing everywhere you go. See? Privacy is unsafe!
Hasn't this already been the case for some time? What's remarkable to me is how late in the game they're making this tracking available to us as a useful feature. Relative to ad targeting I'm not sure there's anything new here.
> normalize the idea of a company always knowing everywhere you go
This doesn't really make sense. Google already has this information. They're sharing what they already had access to with contacts you select. On the other hand, there was an interesting feature a few years ago, where you could share your location with friends without special requests. Since then it has been moved from a separate google service to google+.
What I'm saying is - this is nothing new. It's actually a new, restricted version of what's been available and happening for a long time.
I meant normalize in the social sense that people become more comfortable with google tracking them everywhere instead of feeling creeped out by it. It doesn't have to be new. Most, or at least a large fraction of, google maps and android users would probably be appalled to realize how extensively they're being currently tracked.
I heard that opinion for quite a while already. I wonder if it still holds up. Do people still get creeped out, considering how in-your-face google now is? I don't know many "normal" users, so don't have an answer really.
They should just say that! The marketing is deceptive:
> This new personal safety app lets you share your location with loved ones in everyday situations and when emergencies arise — even if your phone is offline or you can’t get to it.
It's tricky because the access to your location data is available when your phone is offline. They could have done better at explaining that, but probably not with just one sentence.
I very often wish for something similar, for instance when my mother is running a bit late in a park. I don't want to mess with her jogging or walk. But I'd like to be sure she's still fine.
Thing is, except for the current generation, smartphones are often silenced and forgotten in some pocket. So unless it's an invasive constant-on tracker .. it wouldn't work in my case.
There's actually a whole article someone prepared to answer that question, along with a video. If you scroll up to the top of the page you can click the link and go there.
And now, Google injects itself directly within and throughout the level of trust some people only place in their parents or spouses.
It used to be that certain truths were only know between two people, but now for many, it will be those two people, and Google.
Even if it were any other company, the totality of awareness a single organization has, from childhood on up should give us some pause.
Microphones, accelerometers, cameras, GPS, and now annotated depth of relationship, instead of presumed depth inferred from ancillary metrics.
At this point it's getting a little strange.
With software and services these days, there's almost nothing people won't consume. It's as if people will eat everything in a package labeled as food, even if most of the contents are inedible.
More and more, it feels like people know they're eating fish hooks, but maybe they'll pass the foreign objects they've swallowed, before any fisherman tries to tug the line and set the hook.
But even if you or I don't buy in, when everybody else does, the outliers still get hooked and still lands in the boat, just by implicit association and proximity.
The stakes are raised ever higher with each beat of this game. It's like the quote from Apocalypse Now:
Ah, man... The bullshit piled up so
fast in Viet Nam, you needed wings
to stay above it.
I am afraid most people are missing the target audience of this feature.
This is for people who live in unsafe areas and have trusted family member than they do want to watch over.
This is an app that should have been released in India immediately after Nirbhaya incident. For a Company thats supposed to move fast, Google definitely blew timing of launching such a feature.
This is not good. This basically gives a public opening into massive amounts of data which they could legally collect till now but now use it as a product? What happens when people disable location access.
And this:
>But if you’re unable to respond within a reasonable timeframe, your location is shared automatically and your loved ones can determine the best way to help you out.
This does not seem like consent.I can think of at least a 100 situations where I was not near my phone and yet do not want to send my location.
Moreover how is this different from messaging someone/calling someone to ask them where they are?
The only time I am trying to reach a person and cannot reach them is when they are out of coverage range.At that time, no app would make a difference.
This is nice when its a part of other apps (Whatsapp,Uber etc) .On its own, location based information as being the only purpose can prove to be quite disastrous.
Edit 1:
People seem to miss the intricacies of human relationships here.I'd like to see folks tell their parents/loved ones/other close beings how they do not want to add "trusted contacts" and share their location continuously.
> Once you install the Android app, you can assign “trusted” status to your closest friends and family.
Sounds like the consent is explicit at the time of configuration. As long as it's a separate app an opt-in, I don't think this is bad.
More creepy is when it becomes a part of Android itself and someone can add themselves as "Trusted" either via physical access or an exploit. It's a stalker's dream.
> Edit 1: People seem to miss the intricacies of human relationships here.I'd like to see folks tell their parents/loved ones/other close beings how they do not want to add "trusted contacts" and share their location continuously.
I would just say, "hell no!", and leave it at that. If they are close to me, they will understand. In fact, they'd understand enough to not even ask.
iOS allows me to request location access as well as permanently or temporarily share my location. It would be great to get a "last known location" coordinate, but this feature is still very useful.
307 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 265 ms ] threadYeah because that has totally been a problem I've been needing a solution for.
A young woman was abducted recently on a local trail. I don't believe she's been found yet. Perhaps this would have made some difference.
This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama.
Anyone who has ever expected an at-risk person to make contact at an estimated time can relate how worrying it is when that person is delayed.
1. Police can, but won't until they consider it a missing person scenario, which oftdn involves considerable delay, at least for an adult -- and that's even if the police happen to prioritize that case.
2. For many people in various places for a variety of reasons, even aside from delay issues, the police aren't the first people they'd want to rely on. Or even on that list at all.
> This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama
There is some risk of that, but there's also empowerment of people to create their own effective support networks of real, personal trust.
I just suspect that your solution to the smaller problem will make something that's a much larger problem (as in, more than an order of magnitude larger) worse.
This product is a much better version of that system. It's impervious to me forgetting to send the text and gives an accurate location rather than "somewhere in the general area served by this trailhead".
Then again, I'm in Europe, so crime rates are virtually zero, and the only risk is spraining an ankle or something.
I'm also paranoid, so I carry a Cospas-Sarsat PLB as well. But you need to be conscious, and have at least one arm working, to activate that.
Hikes can still be dangerous, especially in the mountains. Hereabouts, pretty much every year several people get seriously injured on one of the trails, usually by tripping and falling down the slope; and in most years, there's at least one fatality.
Usually it's because people veer off the trail or do something similarly dangerous, but sometimes it's just dangerous conditions (e.g. ice) on regular, well-maintained trails that are normally safe, or just bad luck. Better safe than sorry.
His parents were at the finish line waiting and, apparently out of shame, he did not tell them, nor did he answer any calls. So, the organizers sent out an emergency search and rescue team. It was not for another two and a half hours that they realized that the competitor was sitting at home and choosing not to answer his phone.
> If you can't find a friend and become worried about their safety, Messenger could one day let you send a request to see their location. A timer would begin on the friend's phone that gives them a chance to approve or deny the request. If the timer expires on its own, their location would be sent to you automatically.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-reviewed-cool...
As a parent, I find this tremendously useful. This is specially important for people in certain countries where walking/driving home at night is realistically dangerous.
Waiting 10 minutes for a GPS update doesn't seem to actually increase safety in any noticeable way.
I haven't downloaded the app myself. However, I was under the impression the 'virtual walk' was some separate feature that when turned on, allows the person to monitor your whereabouts in near real-time. (like could watch a tiny dot moving on a map as you walk).
One update every 10 minutes is way too infrequent. I feel like the majority of walks people could use this with would take less than 10 minutes ...
Google is already tracking your location all the time if you're in the market for this product. This just exposes that data for what seems like a very useful user feature.
I've lately been getting into the habit of turning location services off unless I actually need them on, and I would recommend it. It's a shame my phone gets my location behind my back without any indication by default.
(This all without you ever telling which location is your work and which is home.)
"To help you through your day, Google needs to: Use and store your location for traffic alerts, directions, and more. User your synced calendars, Gmail, Chrome, and Google data for reminders and other suggestions."
This topic does come up a lot here, and yet this is as direct and concise a way to put it as I can imagine. I wonder what those who have been surprised by the services they have opted into would suggest to improve their understanding of what they are potentially agreeing to?
And this is a general problem - people share all kinds of private information about themselves, without full understanding of the kind of analysis that is possible on that data these days.
I personally don't have a problem with the tech (and I've used Latitude way back, so it's not like any of it is new).
And if you're worried about being tracked in general, then mobile phone. That's the sad truth.
I'm sure GCHQ can track me, but hopefully Google only gets minimal location data.
1. Make it hard/impossible to be forever telling your location to someone (it's unclear if that's what the feel unsafe mode does in the first place, or if it just broadcasts it once)
2. Make it easy to 'enter an alternate location' to tell the inquirer
When user consent can be subverted, otherwise benign opt-in features that are deployed and marketed ubiquitously can have unforeseen consequences.
That said there is a utilitarian way to look at this, that for more situations it helps parents to keep their kids safe. The ethical question is far from cut and dry.
As much as we would like, technology will not solve trust issues in any relationship.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/feb/12/goog...
Just kidding. I like the idea.
I trust my trusted contacts -- let me share my location all the time. (No, some backwater tab in the G+ app does not count.)
Least the G+ feature can be set as a widget.
Whoa there! Were the contacts also Googlers??
This is just the same as the Location tab in Google+ (which used to be a separate app, Latitude) - it's only contacts who have chosen to share their location, but integrated into Maps.
When I've discussed, generally people steer towards the creepy side of being tracked and dont like it. Maybe this version finds a middle ground as it's selling it as 'keeping you safe' while giving Google the right to track your location to sell better targeted ads. Really, the latter is what this is all about.
It's very useful, but why put it in g+ and only in the mobile version of g+!
All that data is stored. They know all your contacts, how you write, what your interests are, where you go every day. What if suddenly the country your in makes it illegal to do X, or feel Z. They decide to arrest everyone who meets the criteria, and there's nothing you can do.
Although, you are correct now, it is ads. But the risk is SO great I really don't understand not taking precautions
I'm a bit nonchalant, I suspect because I work in marketing and see this as trying to get more relevant ads to me. And I'm always interested when ads show up to see what triggered said ad where obvious.
For the potential for abuse, it is a concern. I feel the key is we have a choice on a service like this. And what seems a slightly strange opinion, I am more OK with companies collecting this type of information but would be disturbed if I knew the government was generally accessing it without court order.
Really if your that worried about big brother you should not be carrying around a mobile phone at all. Governments already have ways to track location and activate mics in the background, so in that way its nothing new, now we also have the information.
So, in a way, this app is protecting you against an abusive government.
Note that for those who have Location History turned on, this isn't adding anything.
The Trusted Contacts app allows you to grant people permission to ask for your location or for you to push those people your location if you feel the need. If someone asks your location who is permitted, it prompts you to approve or deny the location request and then times-out and grants it after a few minutes. The whole ask for permission to ask for your location seems awkward at best.
This grant/timeout thing completely defeats the reason why my wife and I use the G+ location sharing which is to avoid the "where are you? when will you be home?" interaction.
I've got an android phone but my wife has an iPhone, does that mean this is useless for us?
Edit, it's in the works:
If you're an iOS user, click here to get notified when the iOS app is available
Owntracks hasn't been too bad for this; there are clients for iOS and Android and the the backend is self-hosted.
http://owntracks.org
The only problem I've encountered with it is that the Android client has shown some instability from time to time, with high battery drain or missed location updates.
This may be a thing that is specific to local conditions, though. It so happens that I live in upper Snoqualmie River valley, which has trailheads for many of the best and most popular hiking trails in the area. So, naturally, this is where most of my hikes are. And the towers that provide signal for the towns in the valley are on the surrounding mountaintops, so they provide coverage for a good chunk of wilderness around, as well.
The cynic in me thinks this whole use case is intended to normalize the idea of a company always knowing everywhere you go. See? Privacy is unsafe!
This doesn't really make sense. Google already has this information. They're sharing what they already had access to with contacts you select. On the other hand, there was an interesting feature a few years ago, where you could share your location with friends without special requests. Since then it has been moved from a separate google service to google+.
What I'm saying is - this is nothing new. It's actually a new, restricted version of what's been available and happening for a long time.
Also, this likely allows them to track kids whereabouts, bypassing COPPA via implied consent.
> This new personal safety app lets you share your location with loved ones in everyday situations and when emergencies arise — even if your phone is offline or you can’t get to it.
I very often wish for something similar, for instance when my mother is running a bit late in a park. I don't want to mess with her jogging or walk. But I'd like to be sure she's still fine.
Thing is, except for the current generation, smartphones are often silenced and forgotten in some pocket. So unless it's an invasive constant-on tracker .. it wouldn't work in my case.
It used to be that certain truths were only know between two people, but now for many, it will be those two people, and Google.
Even if it were any other company, the totality of awareness a single organization has, from childhood on up should give us some pause.
Microphones, accelerometers, cameras, GPS, and now annotated depth of relationship, instead of presumed depth inferred from ancillary metrics.
At this point it's getting a little strange.
With software and services these days, there's almost nothing people won't consume. It's as if people will eat everything in a package labeled as food, even if most of the contents are inedible.
More and more, it feels like people know they're eating fish hooks, but maybe they'll pass the foreign objects they've swallowed, before any fisherman tries to tug the line and set the hook.
But even if you or I don't buy in, when everybody else does, the outliers still get hooked and still lands in the boat, just by implicit association and proximity.
The stakes are raised ever higher with each beat of this game. It's like the quote from Apocalypse Now:
This is for people who live in unsafe areas and have trusted family member than they do want to watch over.
This is an app that should have been released in India immediately after Nirbhaya incident. For a Company thats supposed to move fast, Google definitely blew timing of launching such a feature.
And this:
>But if you’re unable to respond within a reasonable timeframe, your location is shared automatically and your loved ones can determine the best way to help you out.
This does not seem like consent.I can think of at least a 100 situations where I was not near my phone and yet do not want to send my location.
Moreover how is this different from messaging someone/calling someone to ask them where they are? The only time I am trying to reach a person and cannot reach them is when they are out of coverage range.At that time, no app would make a difference.
This is nice when its a part of other apps (Whatsapp,Uber etc) .On its own, location based information as being the only purpose can prove to be quite disastrous.
Edit 1: People seem to miss the intricacies of human relationships here.I'd like to see folks tell their parents/loved ones/other close beings how they do not want to add "trusted contacts" and share their location continuously.
Then don't install the app, man.
Sounds like the consent is explicit at the time of configuration. As long as it's a separate app an opt-in, I don't think this is bad.
More creepy is when it becomes a part of Android itself and someone can add themselves as "Trusted" either via physical access or an exploit. It's a stalker's dream.
I would just say, "hell no!", and leave it at that. If they are close to me, they will understand. In fact, they'd understand enough to not even ask.