A lot of people feel that as long as location sharing is turned on, and family or a partner can always see where they are, they’ve added an extra layer of safety.
But in reality, “location sharing = safety” is often just something we believe is true.
This article is about what sits behind that belief: intimate partner violence, system vulnerabilities, and the silent time when something has already gone wrong and you’re no longer able to hit the SOS button yourself.
Many people ask me the same question the first time they hear about what I’m building:
“Why don’t you just make an app where my family can see where I am all the time?
Isn’t turning on location sharing enough?”
On the surface, it feels like this:
Location sharing = peace of mind.
Your family can see where you are, your partner’s icon is floating around on the map when they’re out, and that feels like “less chance something bad will happen”.
But there’s one thing I’m very sure about:
“Being able to see where you are at any moment”
and
“You are actually safer”
are two completely different things.
1. The intuitive benefits of location sharing (and what most people only see)
Let’s be fair: location sharing does have its benefits.
- When kids go to and from school, or family members go out, it can help you confirm roughly where they are.
- When a partner is late, you can check whether they’re still near the office.
- When someone gets lost, a friend can look at the map and guide them.
A lot of police and domestic violence support services also suggest temporary location sharing with a trusted person in specific high-risk situations. In those cases, it really can help save lives.
But here’s the problem:
The way most people use location sharing
is completely different from those “high-risk scenarios”.
Most of the time, it’s wrapped in words like “I care about you”, “because I worry about you”, “we’re close, right?”,
but what it actually does is:
24/7, full-coverage monitoring.
And in the real world, people most at risk are often those in intimate relationships with unequal power or violence.
2. The real risk: location data is a very sharp knife
According to recent United Nations estimates,
an average of 137 women are killed every day by a partner or family member.
The World Health Organization reports that over 840 million women worldwide have experienced intimate partner violence or sexual violence at some point in their lives.
In that context, “knowing where you are at all times” is no longer just about reassurance.
2.1 In unequal relationships, location becomes an “electronic shackle”
Research from the Australian eSafety Commissioner shows that almost one in five young people think it’s “reasonable” to be able to track a partner’s location at all times.
That means:
- Many people don’t see any problem with being tracked 24/7.
- If you turn location sharing off, you risk being accused of
“Are you cheating on me?” or
“What are you doing that you don’t want me to see?”
In a healthy and equal relationship, location sharing might just be “a bit more convenient”.
But as soon as one side has controlling or violent tendencies,
location sharing immediately becomes a very useful weapon.
In real-world domestic violence and intimate partner abuse cases, it’s already very common to see:
- Tracking the victim’s location
- Installing monitoring or stalkerware apps
- Forcing them to turn on location sharing
These tools are then used to:
- Check whether you really went to work or school
- Watch whether you go to places you’ve been “forbidden” to visit
- Even find out the “safe address” or shelter you thought was hidden
You think you’re “making them feel more at ease”.
But in the wrong hands, you’re actually handing over your entire movement history.
2.2 It’s not just “bad people” – system vulnerabilities can hurt you too
As long as something is built on “a cloud account + real-time location”, these risks will always exist:
- The platform itself gets hacked, or patches are delayed
(we’ve already seen plenty of cases where apps leak sensitive data) - Your phone is stolen, or someone logs into your account, and they can immediately see your real-time location
- Poorly designed new features accidentally expose your general activity area to strangers
(for example, some social apps’ map features have already been flagged by prosecutors and child protection agencies as extremely risky for children and domestic violence survivors)
In other words, you’re not just trusting “who you shared your location with”,
you’re also gambling on:
“Will this platform itself have a serious incident someday?”
2.3 Location sharing is often just “the feeling of safety”
There’s another point that doesn’t get talked about enough:
Seeing a dot on a map
does not automatically mean that person is safe right now.
Common scenarios:
- The phone is left behind, but the person has been taken away
- The phone runs out of battery / crashes / loses signal → all you see is “the last known location”
- An incident has already happened, but on the map it just looks like someone has stopped moving, at a place that seems “normal”
Many families, when they talk about what happened afterwards, say something like:
“We thought that as long as we could see the map,
we’d always be able to find them if something happened.
But when things really went wrong,
the phone gave us no usable signal at all.”
I’m not saying location sharing is useless.
What I want to point out is this:
Most of the time it gives you comfort on the map,
but what truly matters is whether a person can automatically send out a distress signal when they’re no longer able to help themselves.
3. Why I refuse to build a “24/7 live map” system
It’s not that I can’t build it.
It’s that I believe I shouldn’t.
3.1 SafeGuard is built for “the time when you’re already unable to act”
What I’m building is not a tool that “lets someone else see where you are all the time”.
I’m focused on scenarios like these:
- You faint or fall in the bathroom and your phone is outside the room
- You’re trapped in the driver’s seat after a car crash and can’t reach your phone
- You’re taken somewhere you should never have been brought, and you don’t have the freedom to pick up your phone and ask for help
- You go out alone and, at the moment something happens, you’ve already lost consciousness
In these situations, location sharing doesn’t help,
because you no longer have the ability to operate your phone.
That’s why SafeGuard’s core idea is:
“When you lose the ability to ask for help yourself,
your phone should be able to detect something is wrong
and automatically send out an SOS on your behalf.”
Not:
“Send your 24/7 live location to someone or some server.”
3.2 Once I build a “24-hour map”, I can’t stop it from being misused
If I add a feature like:
“Your designated contact can open the app anytime and see where you are.”
that means:
- Any slightly controlling partner can say:
“If you really care about me, leave location sharing on forever.” - Any abuser who gets hold of your phone can force you to install, log in, and enable sharing,
and then use it as a perfectly legal stalkerware.
From an engineering perspective,
this is literally just a matter of adding a few APIs.
But for people living in unequal or abusive relationships,
it means:
I would be putting another weapon directly into an abuser’s hand.
Honestly, I can’t accept that.
I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that the app I built has become a tool that helps perpetrators.
In good hands, location sharing may look like “care”.
But in the wrong hands, it’s a nicely packaged, fully legal electronic shackle.
3.3 I chose “on-device detection + event-based alerts”, not long-term surveillance
SafeGuard’s design principles are:
- Detection logic runs on the device itself – raw data is not uploaded to a cloud server
- Only when something is truly judged as an abnormal event,
does the phone send your current location + a pre-written message to the contacts you chose - There is no screen anywhere that lets someone “log in → open a map → watch your live location whenever they want”
What I want to achieve is:
“When you can’t speak for yourself,
make sure the fact that something happened gets sent out.”
Not:
“Record your entire movement history all the time,
and hand it to someone else to review.”
Technically, these two approaches may look similar.
Ethically, they are completely different paths.
4. So… should we stop using location sharing altogether?
I’m not saying:
“From today on, nobody in the world should ever use location sharing again.”
If you choose to use it, I just hope you’ll at least keep these things in mind:
4.1 Put a time limit on it
- Only turn it on for specific situations
(for example, a particular hike, or a long solo journey) - Turn it off once the situation is over
Don’t let “always on” become the default
4.2 Only share with a very small number of people – those you truly trust
- Don’t hand it out casually.
Not everyone deserves 24-hour access to your location. - When the relationship is unstable, power is unequal, or the other person has a bad temper,
location sharing can very easily turn into a control tool.
4.3 If you already feel this relationship might be dangerous
- Then you should be extremely careful with location sharing.
- Your priorities should be:
- Check whether there are suspicious apps installed on your phone
- Check whether your accounts and passwords have been compromised
5. Which side does SafeGuard stand on?
SafeGuard does exactly one thing:
When you are truly incapacitated and can’t ask for help yourself,
your phone automatically sends
“something has happened + where you are”
to the people you trust.
It does not:
- Spy on where you are in daily life
- Help anyone monitor you long-term
Because I believe:
Real safety is “someone gets a signal in the critical moment”,
not “you trade your freedom for constant surveillance.”
If you want to see how SafeGuard works in practice, you can find it here:
SafeGuard on Google Play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.origmo.safeapp&hl=en
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