With regard to the cheerleaders saying there are no problems whatsoever with this feature:
1. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
2. Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) place different priorities on security relative to other factors.
3. Many of the naysayers are raising issues that do not single out Android, however fair it may be to do so. There are some issues that remain the same beyond the specific platform. For example: this kind of app creates social pressure for people to be tracked by their family and show trust that they may not sincerely feel.
4. If you think they can "just" turn the feature off or "just" remove the trusted contacts when they feel uncomfortable, you are not thinking this through. These "trusted" contacts may be authority figures in the family and may be able to examine any settings done by the actual users.
5. If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information. Your kids do not deserve to be the targets of this kind of commercial activity. So even if you think the feature is good, it is tainted by the interests of the provider. But whether the feature is good or bad, Android is a bad way for children to get the feature.
> Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
Huh? Can you please, concretely, elaborate on how this app makes it easy for other "rogue apps" to access your personal data? Or how is this any significantly different from iCloud Find my Friends feature - especially since iCloud has very interesting exceptions for privacy data collection in EULA.
Or if I say it differently - if you actually read EULAs and what both companies collect, there is no privacy difference between Apple in Google when it comes to cloud services.
The raised concerns about tracking are VERY valid - but they are valid (as you said) for both platforms and calling iOS as "more secure" in this respect is extremely misleading and gives false sense of security. After all, iOS ships the feature BY DEFAULT, thus creating all the pressures you mentioned. Android doesn't.
You're putting words in OP's mouth. S/he only said that iOS makes it harder for apps to access user's data without direct permission. Which is undoubtedly true; Android app permissions are very crude and usually granted when you install app, whereas iOS asks the user the first time the app actually tries to access data (e.g. camera, contacts, GPS).
The permission model in Android changed in Android 6.
Apps using the sdk that was released with Android 6 will have to ask users for permissions as well.
I expect that eventually older SDK's will stop working on modern Android.
So if we ignore more than half the world, 50% of users still don't get those improvement. If you're under the impression that Google isn't able to properly track devices that hit play services, that's an entirely different and more worrisome problem.
The pretty large plurality (if not majority) of Android devices in the wild don't have have Google's services installed and many of those also get no software updates -- so they're stuck on what old ROM they came with, probably Lollipop.
If the Android developer site dashboard [1] could be considered reliable, then the latest statistics show only 26.7% devices (as of yesterday, December 5, 2016) that run Marshmallow and Nougat. This leaves 73.3% devices that do not have the ability to control permissions individually (unless they've been modified with add-ons that allow it).
That dashboard practically never reflects the actual distribution of devices in use - at least according to analytics of app we've released (with several mil users across the globe).
That's because they count all the pings of devices that answered across the globe in a sliding window and that is a hugely different number than actual maket share across US and EU and comparable markets. Sure we can then go into details about how poor Indians / Chinese / Africans need secure phones too (and I agree!), but those people have no means to afford an iPhone either.
(And no, sorry, I can't provide you with NDA protected market data :/ )
Google already changed that in Android 6. You can install an app and only allow it certain permissions.
Of course, thanks to the Android ecosystem, it will take another year or two until a significant portion of people actually switches to devices running Android 6.
Please provide a citation for your stats if you're going to repeat it. As mentioned in my comment above, the Android official dashboard has Android 6 and newer at less than 27% as per the latest measurement yesterday. [1] I can't imagine how this couldn't be alarming.
>1. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
An alternative take on this is that Google has more of a vested interest in securing what data they do collect and making sure it does not leak to any other party. They've generally been ahead of the curve in terms of privacy on the web, such as keeping rogue CA's in check (remember the CNNIC fiasco?), pushing for HTTPS everywhere, or making 2-factor authentication more usable.
Unless said rogue apps are written by Google, how do they help Google's business model?
> Unless said rogue apps are written by Google, how do they help Google's business model?
Tracking information is a revenue stream. Revenue pays for content development. Content sells apps. Google profits off app sales.
Therefore, Google has a disincentive to do anything about the transparent (read: user doesn't know it's happening) third party collection of tracking information. Particularly given the noted disinclination of Android users to purchase apps, relative to their iOS peers.
> If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information.
Pest or cholera. At least it allows you to tinker with it, as opposed to iOS.
And who of the God knows how many users of Android will 'tinker' with it?
Ignorance of the user base, technical or otherwise, IS a valid argument against this sorta thing. We made it so.
> At least it allows you to tinker with it, as opposed to iOS.
Sadly, that's not true anymore.
On iOS, if you jailbreak, you can still use Apple Pay, and all apps.
On Android, if you root, or modify anything, Android Pay stops working, Snapchat stops working, Pokemon Go stops working, most banking apps stop working, most games stop working.
I've been a supporter of Android since the start, but by now it's just as proprietary as iOS, with more spying and tracking and analytics, and less possibilities to tinker.
I can install a non-Google-approved app on my phone via the normal phone UI, without having to exploit any kind of bug in the system (I do have to set a checkbox in the settings). That's a very concrete difference.
Used to work for a company bug testing their app. We used a service called installr which worked on both devices. On iOS you installed a certificate/profile and on android, it downloaded an apk which then got installed manually. 100% of the time it was easier and quicker on iOS. And this was downloaded from the internet, not a mac.
You are suffering from a common misconception, that you can't tinker with your iOS devices. I tinker with my iOS devices all the time. As do many people, with their own devices. With help, encouragement, and software tools provided for that purpose by Apple. I just can't tinker with your iOS device.
Sure. But that's part and parcel to doing anything on there. It's not really a big deal when you can get a Mac that can do it for $300 used--it's probably going to be cheaper than the phone was.
Okay, you can install stuff for a limited time on "your own" device.
You can't use it for a non-trivial amount of time without constantly reinstall it. You can't share it with your friends. You can't make it integrate with anything else on the device.
You can tinker with it in the same sense that you have freedom of speech in a solitary confinement cell.
Oh, and only if you also paid thousands for a glorified license dongle.
> With regard to the cheerleaders saying there are no problems whatsoever with this feature
I'm not criticizing your post, just noting that all of your points are about Location Services and not the Trusted Contacts App.
Trusted Contacts just hooks into Location Services to allow the user to explicitly share already captured information with 3rd parties.
Location Services is used by tons of other apps and if you dumb it down or turn it off those apps will stop working or beg you to turn on the most granular of it's settings.
Here are some of the ways that Location Services is used:
- Google Wallet will see you're at XYZ Retail store and pop up a notification with your rewards card barcode on it.
- Google Maps will see you're at the trendy new restaurant and ask you to snap a couple photos and review the place.
- Google Now or Maps (not entirely sure which) will tell you if your commute home is going to suck or not and alert you to accidents on the road ahead.
- Google Rewards will ask you randomly/creepily "have you been to ABC and if so when?" and give you a pittance for your data.
- If someone has access to your Google Account, they can easily activate the find my phone feature and see exactly where you are without your knowledge.
Regardless of whether or not you have any of these Apps installed, if Location Services is on then it is silently tracking your location. You can see everything it tracks on your timeline (https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)
> If someone has access to your Google Account, they can easily activate the find my phone feature and see exactly where you are without your knowledge.
When your phone is located using the "Find my phone" feature, it pops up a notification on the phone (this phone has been located). Of course, if they had physical access to your phone in the past, they may have blocked this notification, but it is provided by Google Play Services, so that requires to block a wide range of notifications (eg. all "app update available" notifications iirc).
On the other hand, they may access your location history, if you enabled that, and see where you went in the (possibly very recent) past without any notification.
Interesting, I hadn't noticed that before. If you go to use the feature it also asks you to re-authenticate so the person would have to know your password as well.
3 & 4 seem significant, though perhaps an inevitable problem with any location/rescue tool that bundles into cell phones. After all, even without this a parent could easily call and say "take a picture of where you are and send it to me" or "go on Facebook and share your location". Information sharing almost always risks invasiveness if someone has the power to go "share now or face consequences".
That said, the last known location feature seems like a special concern. Right now "my phone is off" is a cure for location requests from an authority, even if it carries the possibility of later action. This change creates a system where last location is available regardless, and a clearly-intentional settings change is required to alter that.
I don't know how much of this to lay on Google, since "don't build tools authority figures can misuse" would have prevented fire. But I do think there's a common failure to consider use cases like minors with authoritative parents, when it's very possible to build tools that are at least less easily misused in that situation.
1. Yes people will always raise concerns but if this saves lives and makes people safer then we should embrace it and be happy about it.
2. Yes and Android is more open in general than Apple
3. If I Richart Ruddie am leaving Baltimore City to head back to Baltimore County/Owings Mills and I want my parents to know that I am safe then I would be glad to have a seamless feature like this no? Social pressure = safety?
4. There definitely needs to be a level of control to turn the features on and off.
5. Interesting thoughts on the monetization aspect but its more about safety here you would rather have your child monetized and save their life then to not monetize or at least I hope so.
> Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not
Apple 100% is profiting off you and your family members just not off of sharing data which has pluses and minuses. They have milked out that Apple Tax to build the world's richest company.
Money dictates these positions. Currently Apple has a market share of about 12% and has 103% of the profit share. This means every other phone companies combined loss money as a whole and Apple out performed them.
Apple's Achilles heel is with AI and has to do with their position with data. What a pain it was for my rebellious daughter (She buys Apple products and laughs in my face) to go from one phone to the next and it has to relearn her because things don't transfer. Apple Maps doesn't know where she use to go on her old phone etc..
Tim Cook and company will have to start collecting and sharing data between devices and spaces. This will be done to save SIRI and what I get with Google Now. You might think I am sipping the kool-aid but I believe that our data will serve us more tin the future and this present Apple stance will have to change.
I've owned iPhones since the 3G and have always backed up the old one and restored the backup on the new one and the new phone picks up the previous locations, etc. This whole thing is integrated into the initial setup of the new phone, though it relies on iCloud backups. Doing the backup/restore through iTunes works very well too, just not quite as smoothly.
> Currently Apple has a market share of about 12% and has 103% of the profit share. This means every other phone companies combined loss money as a whole and Apple out performed them.
Imagine the profit of the phone industry as a whole was $100 and the profit of Apple's phone division (with 12% of the market share) was $103. So the rest of the industry (considered as a single whole, which of course it isn't) must have lost $3.
There's no mangling that I can see? Take your profit number. Take the profit number for the industry as a whole (there's an opportunity for gerrymandering here, but phone sales are a pretty natural category). Divide a by b.
Sorry Snarky and not trying to be a jerk but TRYING to just make a funny commentary on society. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to sit in a room of very intelligent people and they have no math skills!!!! How is it acceptable to say "I'm not good in math."
I am guessing that the nay sayers to this app probably don't have young children. I have two sons (16 and 13) who are always out and about socialising with friends, or at sporting / musical activities. My older son gigs with his band late at nights, and let me tell you - as parents, my wife and I do not rest easy until we either pick him up or he gets dropped home.
Any app that lets us check on our kids' whereabouts quickly and effectively without taking them out of the zone (Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??) is a blessing IMO.
An app like this would be restricted just between my wife and I, and our two boys. No more than that. No more is needed. We are an 'absolute trust' group and quite frankly, the idea that any of us would want to hide our locations from each other is simply not even a thing.
Do your teens (you're hardly a 'young child' at 16) share your enthusiasm for sharing location at all time with their parents? I know I was not at that age. Learning to be autonomous is part of growing up. Setting up a one-click call for help with location is one thing, wanting to know the whereabouts of your 16 years old son at all times is something else entirely, that has little to do with his actual safety.
Just to be clear, I don't want this as a 24/7 thing, but rather on those odd occasions where a higher level of alertness is required, i.e. when my older son finishes a band gig at midnight in the seedier part of town.
I think I have a pretty good trust relationship with my kids, but there have been times where they have been half an hour late home from school or a gig etc. and the worry button gets hit. In all occurrences, it has been simple things like missing a bus, or staying back to get help with teachers etc., but those are the sorts of things that I'd like to be able to check on quickly before resorting to calling/texting.
The ability to notice something is amiss, then do a quick spot check to see "Oh, its OK, he is still on school grounds" or "He's on the number 10 bus homeward bound" is reassuring.
EDIT: I just realised that I forgot to answer your actual question re: Are my kids OK with it (the monitoring).
Neither of them have pushed back much on this. In fact, last year I developed a small iPhone app purely for the family to use to achieve the sort of tracking this Google system does. My sons were actually quite helpful in helping me design and test it out. End of the day I abandoned the app because I just didn't have enough time to maintain it, and there were other third party apps coming out that did the same thing.
As mentioned above, we have a pretty good trust relationship with our kids. Its not as if we track their every movement, and we are quite flexible with them spending a lot of time out with their friends and other sporting/social activities. It is just on those outlying times where we feel the situation is not completely 100% rosy that we like the ability to do a quick 'ping' check.
If you're using iOS, have you seen Find my Friends? My group of friends and family all have each other set up on that app.
It definitely does seem potentially kinda creepy or weird initially, but if you do truly trust each other, it's actually really useful. e.g. You can passively see where someone is before nagging them to ask if they're going to get here soon, etc.
My daughter has iPhone 5S with Find my Friends activated. I find it rather buggy. It does not "stream" location so for example if she is on bus and I try to check she jumps off on the right stop it goes something like this: Now I can see she is 500M from her bus stop, Updating.... cannot locate.... updating... cannot locate... after few minutes... Doorbell rings, oh she is home now and app also show her location is home.
Not exactly pleasant experience as a parent.
Right, but that is simply the reality of not destroying the person's battery life. You can't continuously stream an accurate location to the web without using a lot of power - it has to be pull rather than push. This is also a bit better around privacy and data protection.
You can also configure the phone to send out its location just before its battery dies.
> Just to be clear, I don't want this as a 24/7 thing, but rather on those odd occasions where a higher level of alertness is required, i.e. when my older son finishes a band gig at midnight in the seedier part of town.
The disconnect here for me is that your hypothetical is hardly a new phenomena unique to our time. What would you have done in the 50s? 80s? 90s?
Let's put things in perspective here. The very fact that you can have real time updates on the metrics off the /device/ that is expected to be carried with your son means you have a direct channel of communication to your son's device. Worried? Give him a call. Problem solved.
Why? I always see such massive push back to technology in what would theoretically be a tech-adopting crowd.
Why would i, as a band playing Son, want to have to stop practicing or playing a set to call my family back in a timely manner? Couldn't some technology, perhaps a device in my pocket, allow my parents to know where i am, handle the burden?
Why is my mother knowing where i am such an invasion of privacy? Mind you, i'm 30 now, but i don't care if my wife knows where i am 24/7. Hell, i want her to. I'd also like to know where she is. We've got nothing to hide from eachother, so why should the 1950s method of calling eachother periodically to ping our locations be used? Why is 1950s your metric for success here?
I want technology to make my life less of a hassle. By all means, make it secure, i'm not arguing anything different. But i'd like to move beyond 1950 please.
I would really like to think that this technology we surround ourselves today would make things much easier to stay in touch, no? When I was a kid playing in bands etc. in the 80's, I had to actually put myself in MORE danger sometimes by walking down a street to a public phone to call my parent or arrange a lift after gigs. I am glad my son doesn't have to do that.
"Giving him a call" is all fine, except if they are mid set or are tearing down while another band plays - stages can be loud places, and not the best things for talking on a phone, or even texting when they are busy moving gear. A quick check to see "Oh, he is still at the venue" or "He appears to be at the band's storage lockup right now" is enough for me to know that it is pretty much ops normal.
There is no question technology can improve things. The problem is not the tech, it's society and actors in society. Google and alike are willynilly becoming institutions and "pushback" is not against tech in the least (cell phones are tech, right?).
Actually, that doesn't solve the problem that Trusted Contacts solves for location requests, which is specifically providing most-current-known location to a trusted party when the subject is unable to respond (and which does not rely on having a current channel to the device, though the more recent the central server had such a channel, the more current the response can be.)
I think we as parents sometimes should take a step back from our feelings and I think this is a prime example. Just because you feel a certain way (and pay for their phone) doesn't make it alright to push such an invading service onto your children. You feeling uneasy when your teenage child is out and about is your problem, not theirs, so you deal with it.
I was okay with this analogy until the politicians vs. citizens part. Maybe you should reconsider how bonkers your children : 18-yr old independent children :: citizens : politicians sounds
It's a pretty good analogy for the United Kingdom, at least, with the recently passed Snoopers Charter which gives unlimited access to a large number of government agency to the browsing information for all citizens, with the exception of politicians.
Why do you even put money in the equation? Raising kids is not about paying for stuff. Nor is paying for stuff what defines your relationship with them. Whether you're paying for stuff or not has little to do with how you're trying to raise them as responsible, trustworthy individuals.
If you don't put children in situations to experiment and earn your trust, they will never learn.
And yes parents worry, that's normal. If you lose sleep over your kid being out having fun with friends, it's perfectly ok. It's feature of raising kids, not a bug.
I didn't mind when I was 16 because my mother was pragmatic. She didn't want to control me or my whereabouts and was only concerned with my safety. She also made it clear that I could always count on her for a ride no matter the hour without any fear of anger, annoyance or retribution. She cared only for my safety and well being and she trusted me. That trust weighed heavy on my decision making process.
Would that work on all kids? I doubt it. But we can't project our own experiences onto other parents and kids. It can seem bizarre to those that grew up with a rebellious streak or controlling parents but it's possible to have really good and trusting relationships with your parents.
Honest question: when you didn't want your parents knowing where you were - did you make good choices?
The truth for me;
If I had listened to my parents, I would not be as cool. But If I had listened, I would be healthier and getting older - I realize health is happiness.
Friends and I would frequently sneak out of school during lunch breaks etc. This was during day time in a very large, safe city, (with ample access to public transportation, police officers, etc) and gave our teenage brains the freedom and independence that school so eagerly took away from us.
If my parents had received a push notification the moment I left school, my teenage years would have been utterly miserable, instead of just mostly miserable.
To be honest, I hope my kids do the same when they're that age. I'd absolutely yell at them if I found out because that's how it's supposed to be (and that's how they get better at not being caught), but deep inside I'll be glad they did. It's part of growing up.
That being said, I understand why Americans and their car-centric, gun heavy cities wouldn't agree with this, except maybe in a city like NYC. Which is why I won't be raising my kids in the US. I expect the public infrastructure of where I live to guarantee my kid's safety, and not to have to rely on helicopter parenting to give me peace of mind.
> This was during day time in a very large, safe city, (with ample access to public transportation, police officers, etc)
Knowing your kids location isn't something you always need, but when you do, you need it badly. Anything can happen in a 'large, safe city' - such as being run over. Parents knowing where you are when you don't turn up at home at the agreed time is OK with me.
My other question is: are you a parent yet? When you become a parent, your brain gets rewired, you start worrying about things you never worried about before.
Ahhh here's the thing though, in such a case you don't really need their location right that second. There's nothing you can do. They will be taken to a hospital and will be taken care of. Of course you would love to be there for you children the second they are in pain, just like when they fell on their face when they just started walking, but you don't need to. As a parent you have to accept that from when your kids get into their teenage years they will start to become independent, they will have experiences (good or bad) without you and they will be just fine. Or they won't be fine. But you certainly couldn't have prevented them getting run over, getting robbed, abducted or raped by having constant access to their location.
>you start worrying about things you never worried about before.
And you always will worry, trust me. Even when your kids turn 30, you still worry. You have to try to look at this objectively instead of with your feelings, people start being independent and there's nothing you can do about it. You will have to learn to let them go. What's next, do you want body function trackers installed so you can check their heart rate to see if they're still alive or their glucose level to see if they have already had their lunch yet?
Anecdote about independence nearing 30: I went home to see my mom for Thanksgiving. Ended up staying a week longer than intended after getting the flu, at her suggestion - and I wasn't fit to complain. Few days later and feeling better, instead of a return train she insists on driving me back home (3 hours one way). Like, mom you're awesome and I love you but honestly - NOPE - to the point of a full first-middle-last name dressing down that I was her child goddammit and that was the end of it.
My point to GP here is this: growing into adulthood is a give and take in both directions. You have to give your newly emerging mini-adults enough space to fail, recover, adapt, and learn - and yes, potentially get injured too, as horrible as that mere chance might seem.
If you don't do this, you're interfering with their chance to learn resiliency and self-reliance.
And anecdotally, they'll maybe be less likely to willingly stick around as adults and allow you to indulge your parental worries, once in a while.
> To be honest, I hope my kids do the same when they're that age. I'd absolutely yell at them if I found out because that's how it's supposed to be (and that's how they get better at not being caught), but deep inside I'll be glad they did. It's part of growing up.
Uh I think your reward function is broken.
Why punish them if they're being safe and doing something you actually want them to do? Why not communicate with them to figure out the rationalization behind the rule and enforce the right thing?
I'm afraid I don't really understand why inconsistent logic means knowing your kids location is bad.
> If my parents had received a push notification the moment I left school, my teenage years would have been utterly miserable, instead of just mostly miserable.
Incidentally you can just leave your phone at home, or turn it off.
Highly depends on what you mean by bad choices. I couldn't name one "bad" decision I made then that has a negative impact on me today.
I did wander and skatboard in a lot of locations that were closed off, or we were not supposed to be, which isn't something your parents would usually want. Doing that I made a lot of great connections with people I wouldn't have met in my otherwise pretty sheltered life.
I think it's more important that such a system could easily destroy a lot of good experiences for the children and less important that it prevents bad ones (which can also be valuable experiences).
Honest question: Looking back now, do you feel like those restrictions were overzealous? Or were the restrictions valid, and simply nothing bad happened the times you broke them?
The places I had in mind while writing this were mostly old abandoned properties that were closed off due to insurance reasons. The owners usually don't mind the activity in itself but once they knew we were there, they had to send us away (again, insurance legalities). They worst thing that could have happened would be that they call the police and the police would report it to our parents.
I don't think my parents ever took note of it, but if they would have known, where I was I guess they would have been a lot more strict about it. And that would be understandable, because who wants to get a call from the police?
So no, nothing "bad" would have happened, just a bit of hassle.
Thanks. Just to explain where I'm coming from, I'm trying to mentally tie this discussion to the ones that happen around children being independent in public. This discussion is interesting, because people seem to be framing themselves as if they were the child, where in the other discussions I usually see framing based on being the parent.
I think it's easy for people who grow up cool to underestimate how important that social experience is, and how damaging it can be to not have. I feel like I've spent much of my social time in my 20s making up for the stuff I didn't learn in high school, and it's a lot harder to go through the experimentation stage when your peer group has already long since passed it.
Yes, and I suspect the same is true a lot of the time for a lot of people, because parents are still people, after all--just as prone to make bad decisions, to have biases and prejudices, to not really know their own children.
I think I would be fine with it if I knew it was only for emergencies, and I can trust my parents not to use it otherwise (and I would be notified if they did).
> only for emergencies ... and I would be notified if they did
From the article:
"And if your trusted contacts are really worried about you, they can request to see your location. If everything’s fine, you can deny the request. 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."
From a later example on that page this "reasonable timeframe" seems to be 5 minutes.
We have a very strong suspicion our 16 year old is dealing drugs. He disappears for days at a time with no money and returns completely off his face. Being able to see where he is is not really about being popular with him.
With regard to the naysayers, most of this functionality is built into iOS and has been for years. Few of the fears that people have expressed about Google Trusted Contacts have come true with the iOS incarnation of it. Depending on your situation, it can be a very useful feature - especially if you have kids.
Your cell network provider knows your location and so does your smartphone OS' vendor.
The only change that comes with this tool is that through it you can also share this information with a third party that you appoint (and with a seemingly reasonable protocol: third party requests your location, you get 5 minutes to decline the request. no action on your part -> location is sent under the assumption that you have a problem and can't react).
I used to be a son out skateboarding with a parent subsidized cellphone that was, on many occations, not answered. I can now understand the worry I cause my parents 'you were gone for 12 hours skateboarding and didn't think to check yr phone once! You have a phone for one reason and that's so we can reach you.'
Parents will worry when they don't know where their kids are - and it's normal to worry. Despite (inspite?) of our paranoid tendencies, IMO parents have a right to know where their kids are.
> IMO parents have a right to know where their kids are
don't kids have a right to not let their parents know?
If I decide as a teenager to go and have sex with my boyfriend, shouldn't I be free to keep that from my parents?
What if my parents disapprove of him, cause he's from a "bad part of town"?
Parents worry, and that is normal, and they should teach kids how to make it manageable (i.e. ping via SMS, "call me when the show is over" or whatever), but 24/7 control is a different thing.
> don't kids have a right to not let their parents know?
Quite frankly: no. As a kid, you aren't mature enough or developed enough to be trusted to make reasonable decisions. That is why you have a guardian and that is why you get some leeway in court. It is also why you tend to not be allowed to consent to many things.
You can keep your banging your boyfriend from your parents (but they probably know. Kids aren't that smart. ESPECIALLY when crotches are involved), but they should, if they wish, know where you are. Because they are responsible for you and are responsible for dealing with your screw-ups. If that means humping in a car or at a friend's place while their parents are out of town: Welcome to being a teenager.
Being a kid is about screwing up. A LOT. Being a parent is about being the safety net for those screw-ups. And that involves being able to find your dumbass kid when they do what kids do.
As for abuse: The parents who want to know where you are 24/7 already can. Just install an app to do it or use Find my iPhone/Android. If anything, this is less invasive as the child can decline to share location and just call to say "I'm alright".
If kids don't screw up because they are under constant control, what would give you assurance they will not once that constant control gets turned off?
Also I don't honestly understand: what threats are you actually protecting your kids from by having them under constant location surveillance?
Do you guys fear your kids are at constant risk of being kidnapped every time they go out?
I used to worry that my little brother would have some accident while driving drunk or stoned, I worry about friends and relatives being molested or physically assaulted, but knowing where they are would hardly give me any solace.
Again, the strawman is that parents will watch every five seconds all day long. Yes, some will, but they already have
Again, if anything, this gives MORE leeway. My sister pings her kid's location. They have five minutes to approve or decline and call her. That handles the problem of kids who don't realize that obnoxious ringtone is theirs.
And the google page on this already gave the use case. Someone goes somewhere (in this case, hiking) and later misses an appointment. You ping them and get an idea of where they were and can act from there.
Going back to the My Sister example: The kid doesn't respond and she gets a location. It is her kid's friend Jane's place. My sister is now relieved because she trusts her kid and Jane to not get into too much trouble (outside of MAYBE needing a Plan B pill...). Or she gets the location and it is the intersection of Drug Street and Rape Alley. My sister is now pissed and kind of terrified and actively calls the kid while looking for her car keys to go deal with this. Or the kid declines, calls her, and says "Hey mom. I'm fine. Oh, that loud car and gunfire in the background? We are totally playing Call of Duty. I'll talk to you later". At this point, depending on the parent, they decide how to act. I know from experience that my sister would probably IM her husband or me and start complaining and we would try to calm her down and remind her that her kid isn't a complete dumbass and knows they can count on her. Whereas I know our mother would be insisting on picking us up from wherever we may be.
But again, this strawman of the abusive parent is just a load of bull hockey. They already have ways to be abusive parents.
thanks for the reply, but I never talked about abusive parents. I don't think parents are abusive if they want to check their kids position, i think it's normal.
And I don't expect anyone to be checking the phone every 5 seconds, either, the _possibility_ of checking it at any time is what conditions my behaviour.
And with the world we live in: Understanding that someone is always watching IS a good thing to teach. Teach your kids that anything they do online can have repercussions. And if they are doing something where they absolutely would be screwed if they were caught: Should they be doing it?
As a kid that means not hanging out with Billy the Pothead. As an adult that may be something (more) illegal. Learn early.
It is normal to worry, and I've done this as a kid too. But I've learned a lot about responsibility and communication through this, more than if my parents just had a bug placed on me 24/7. I've learned that you earn trust, that it's a continuous work in progress.
What makes you think Google did not already have access to this information? They don't even obfuscate the fact because for the last several years, you could see your location history[1] as reported by your device.
Maybe you let YOUR device report back with location information. Maybe you never leave home without your phone.
Maybe you attach an authentic identity to YOUR phone.
Maybe some multinational corporation has insight into all of YOUR habits.
With luck, I've substantially limited the attack surface of my information, not by trusting the oh-so-helpful, feel-good, animated, haptic touch-screen toggles sprinkled here and there, but rather by NOT implicitly trusting any of the devices released in the past ten years to do anything my way, ever. Even when rooted.
Hence why I mentioned 'any of us'. I realise that a lot of family units have different dynamics, rules and outlook on life and each will do what suits them I guess, but I like to think, that for the time being at least, our family has an open and pretty good trust thing going on that means location awareness amongst ourselves is for the greater good.
> my wife and I do not rest easy until we either pick him up or he gets dropped home.
That fears are completely normal. Been able to track your kids not so much. Please, think twice before using a technology that you don't know which long term psychological effects can have on your children.
> Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??)
When I was a child I could lie to my parents on where I was. I didn't dit it, but I have a choice. That's part of growing up. You will steal away that responsibility from them. Maybe it is not a problem, but you don't know.
It is extremely tempting to use this technologies, maybe kids right activists should lobby for laws that forbid them.
I'm not surprised that such a feature is being bashed by HN. I love it, though.
I'm a little wary of Google implementing this feature, but alas, all i really care about is that my wife and i can see each other. Especially since she takes the bus quite frequently. Likewise she often has no idea where i am in my commute, and i don't like to text her while driving.
I understand peoples concerns, but i think they need to take a step back for a second and look at the UX. The UX/Value prop is clearly there - some of us want to see where others are (assuming it's consensual of course), and that is a very valuable feature. So with that said, what needs to be done to settle the HN concerns i wonder?
The feature is useful, and highly desired for some of us. I'd love for my wife to be able to find me 24/7. Beyond that, i have no qualms about what needs to be done to quell HN concerns - just find a way to get me my feature.
The question is if a teen would be willing to sacrifice privacy for a free phone and service. If the teen isn't paying for the phone or service then they are the product.
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.)
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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> I'm seeing in the comments that the level of trust in companies is higher than the trust in your government.
Maybe that's occasionally deserved.
I'm probably more paranoid about surveillance than you are. I wrote positively about this app anyway.
The average commenter here is, more than likely, like me, not really in the target demographic for this app. I'm male, reasonably strong, and capable of defending myself. I don't worry when I leave the house.
Sometimes my female friend, who is passionate about bicycling, tells me about her experiences on the nearby bike trail. Where, every day, she passes by dozens of loitering homeless individuals. Where, some time ago, a woman was dragged off her bike and had her face shattered. Where multiple women have been kidnapped. She expresses fear, but loves her sport enough to overcome it.
She rides on a multi-thousand dollar custom-made road bike that's surely appealing for someone desperate enough.
Who am I to tell her that her fears are overwrought? My physical safety isn't at stake.
For people like her, I think this app is worth consideration. For people like me, I never wanted it.
She's dragged off the trail. Her husband notices and notifies the police.
She halts during a physical confrontation. Her friend calls to check up on her, and calls the police when she can't be reached.
She crashes and becomes incapacitated. Someone checks her location after she fails to meet up.
In reality, sports enthusiasts already use expensive tools for this. But the point of my comment wasn't about my affluent friend. It was about similar disadvantaged people facing actual dangers.
Nerds complaining about privacy, while the only threat they face is increased cholesterol levels, just seems so trite.
> She's dragged off the trail. Her husband notices and notifies the police.
How would he notice unless he was actively watching? And what constitutes “off” the trail, anyway? If she strays off the trail for whatever reason, would she have to remember that her husband (or anyone else) might be watching and call the police to intrude on what might be a situation not amenable to improvement by armed personnel?
> She halts during a physical confrontation. Her friend calls to check up on her, and calls the police when she can't be reached.
How would the police help after a confrontation already has taken place? How fast is the police, really?
> She crashes and becomes incapacitated. Someone checks her location after she fails to meet up.
All right, in this case it would actually help. But this does not mean that she should have this capability turned on all the time, 24/7; only while she is doing a physically dangerous activity. Like going hiking – it’s normal to leave word of your planned route, in case of emergency. But not all the time.
> How would he notice unless he was actively watching? And what constitutes “off” the trail, anyway? If she strays off the trail for whatever reason, would she have to remember that her husband (or anyone else) might be watching and call the police to intrude on what might be a situation not amenable to improvement by armed personnel?
Nearby here, recently, a woman was ambushed and taken off into the woods, and has since vanished.
Supposing hypothetically that her hypothetical tracking beacon was emitting several hundred meters off into the unexplored woods, maybe someone would have noticed. Hypothetically. Sorry.
It's uncommon for bicyclers to go off course. Bikes don't navigate well through trees. And no one wants to leave their valuable possession behind.
And I was being terse before. Normally there would be some attempted contact beforehand.
> How would the police help after a confrontation already has taken place? How fast is the police, really?
In a kidnapping or injury scenario, time is of importance. Alerting the authorities (or anyone nearby, really) can save a life. If first responders wait additional hours because they were alerted too late, that person may die.
People who travel tell people when they expect to return. If they leave on a three-hour trip, and experience catastrophe thirty minutes in, it may be 2.5 to 5+ hours before someone makes an emergency call.
> All right, in this case it would actually help. But this does not mean that she should have this capability turned on all the time, 24/7; only while she is doing a physically dangerous activity. Like going hiking – it’s normal to leave word of your planned route, in case of emergency. But not all the time.
Sure. I never suggested around-the-clock monitoring.
She -- and her bicycling friends -- have been carrying tracking equipment for years. They plot their courses and compete on sprint times.
So they are totally used to surveillance. It took me by surprise that so many HNers found the concept anathema.
> Your “nerds” comment is insulting and demeaning.
I guess. It was mostly tongue-in-cheek. I'm one of them.
On your second point, this is a very interesting distinction between American and European views of privacy that I've noticed a lot here on HN. I'm curious about the source of European skepticism, but from my own perspective, America has always had a skepticism of government powerfully built into our Constitution, and you can freely choose to associate or disassociate with a business at your leisure; not so with a government. I would really enjoy hearing the other perspective.
Companies are more directly accountable through $$$. Government is only accountable indirectly through elections; and you can win those with 51% of the vote [0]; the other 49% could completely disagree.
[0] With the Electoral College, you don't even need a majority of the popular vote.
Many US elections, emphatically including those of Presidential electors, are done by plurality rule, so you don't need a majority to start with -- which is floor(votes×50%)+1, not 51%. With the structure of the EC, you can, therefore, win with a minority of votes in states with a minority of the population.
> Companies are more directly accountable through $$$
What's direct about that? Companies are directly accountable to their shareholders, accountable to the general population via the government, and very indirectly accountable to their customers.
In the UK, our current Conservative government "won" a majority (and hence control of the government) with only 35% of the popular vote. It's the smallest mandate a UK government has had in modern history.
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.
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.
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 tend to feel that this is more for parents who don't trust their kids, rather than those who do. Many parents will say, "My kids won't have a problem with this because we have trust in our family."
The truth is, if you trusted your kids, you wouldn't need the ability to obtain their exact location without having to ask for it. Parents who trust their kids will already know where their kids are supposed to be, or will just ask them.
On the other hand, I see no problem with the feature that allows you to request location and will automatically send location after a long non-response.
Of course, most kids (beyond a certain age) are going to occasionally go places their parents aren't comfortable with. This is a normal part of growing up and it shouldn't be impossible IMO. Even in particularly bad or dangerous cases, I would feel this calls for a normal punishment (maybe?). No TV, chores, etc. Not constant location tracking.
It will be primarily used for parents to track their kids.
They don't need to specifically spell out that use case with parent/child characters.
It seems obvious to me that this will enable parents (all kinds, good and bad) to track their kids with a pretty scary level of control.
But you're right in that this isn't just restricted to parents and children. In my post just substitute parent/child with a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend.
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.
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 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'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.
Should I think that it is coincidence that Uber wants 24/7 location data, FB wants it, and Now Google officially wants it..
Now, people like me who prefer to 'own' their digital lives, and not become part of this surveilled garden would be labeled as 'tinhat'.
I know. This is just getting sickening. Can't they focus on delivering real value without being just an 'advertisement company'. I know that advertising is like the only thing that makes money anymore, but does it really help people? No.
Be a science, engineering, and technology company, Goddammit!
Can someone brave please put their foot down and say enough? Someone?
And, it's even so much worse because they make it seem like they're such good guys by releasing these 'free' or 'cheap' services. It's just outright deceptive.
This --> "And, it's even so much worse because they make it seem like they're such good guys by releasing these 'free' or 'cheap' services. It's just outright deceptive." <--
This is the problem here. I find myself infuriated and helpless talking to my friends (non tech) about not trusting Google or any provider for that matter with their entire digital life. They look as if I'm the non sensible one. They must be thinking "Why is he being an idiot by saying no to free stuff?"
It is scary to think that one company knows (1) What you search for, (2) What videos you watched in the past, (3) Where all you have been (Google Maps), (4) What you like to read (Google News), (5) Who are your friends, what things you buy, what are your personal conversations about, Which flights you check-in to, What other subscriptions you have, and much more (Gmail).
Too much power can be easily derived when this data is put together. For example, they can easily profile a person's political leanings based on these.
It is even worse that they are in the advertisement business that tries to create a bubble for yourself and keep feeding you digital information based on what you already like, and not an unbiased view of the world.
For example, if I read about Republican party once, and had one email from Republican campaign, then I start to see Republican Ads all over my digital life. Of course, that influences my view of the political world. It is like being imprisoned by one's own past.
Hopefully, things will change, and people will realize that there is no free lunch before it is too late.
Meaning - yes, clearly it helps companies sell their products and services. But, as an individual consumer, how many times over the past year have you purchased something because its advertisement informed you of something that you truly needed but didn't know about?
Interesting. Me and my SO use glympse to coordinate pickups, but we've been looking for a relatively low power consumption way to share location just generally.
>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!
> 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.
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.
It sometimes escapes me how much power google holds over the internet. It's moments like this that rekindle my fear in the "Don't be Evil" slogan (or for that matter, the removal of said slogan).
The app isn't working for me. I keep pressing Continue on the welcome screens and after the 4th or 5th screen Continue stops doing anything. Same thing when I restart the app, etc... anyone have this problem?
What a great way for homophobic parents to keep track of their gay kids and make sure they aren't hanging out at that LGBT centre, or with any LGBT-friendly people!
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.
- google now has one more reason to collect your location and associate it with the rest of your activities
- you are encouraged to use your phone even more, because doing so signals to your loved ones that you're ok. Using your phone pretty much means sharing even more data with google, watching their ads and buying stuff from their app store
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.
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.
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.
Geez. Google is just getting carried away with this tracking stuff. It's like every day they release something new that seems to con people into letting Google track them.
I know advertising is a trillion dollar industry. But, you'd think that Google, of all companies, would be the ones to create real innovation and value without falling to the lowest common denominator.
WTF - I know Google employees troll this forum to build brand and influence, but squelch criticism? Come on. What ever happened to the 'don't do evil' company?
Or maybe that "criticism" is just not very good and merely a rehash of the same (weak) point made so many times on this very page already?
"con people into letting Google track them" - how does this enable any _more_ tracking than existed yesterday? The only thing I see it enables is to share the data that already exists about the user with the people that user appoints (and trusts, hopefully).
Disclosure: Google employee, but nothing to do with location services.
First, I really appreciate the reply. So, thank you.
It may seem a rehash (and, it partially is). But, there are readers who are either unaware or have forgotten that Google doesn't give away services for free. Google is an advertisement and tracking company, not a benevolent technology supplier.
The Google collective is obviously way smarter than any of us. So, who really knows how they plan to profit from this service. My guess: It gives them further reach beyond Android devices. It requires people who may otherwise quickly turn off location services to keep it on. And, it allows them to bypass COPPA via implied parental consent.
Look, I've worked in this industry. And, tracking devices (AKA people) is massively profitable. And, the profit increases exponentially. That is, the profit per signal increases as the number of signals and devices grows. Furthermore, at the highest levels of coverage density, it becomes possible to even make accurate conclusions from the empty spaces (i.e. people without devices).
My (totally scientifically unfounded) suspicion is that people who decide to turn off Location Services also won't install this app (or will enable the app selectively, if they use LS that way so far)
>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.
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.
1. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
2. Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) place different priorities on security relative to other factors.
3. Many of the naysayers are raising issues that do not single out Android, however fair it may be to do so. There are some issues that remain the same beyond the specific platform. For example: this kind of app creates social pressure for people to be tracked by their family and show trust that they may not sincerely feel.
4. If you think they can "just" turn the feature off or "just" remove the trusted contacts when they feel uncomfortable, you are not thinking this through. These "trusted" contacts may be authority figures in the family and may be able to examine any settings done by the actual users.
5. If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information. Your kids do not deserve to be the targets of this kind of commercial activity. So even if you think the feature is good, it is tainted by the interests of the provider. But whether the feature is good or bad, Android is a bad way for children to get the feature.