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18th Oct 2017

WhatsApp’s new location feature is a little bit creepy

What do you think?

Alan Loughnane

WhatsApp

It makes us uncomfortable…

WhatsApp are introducing a feature that will let you track your friends’ location.

The app is introducing a new “Live Location” feature that will allow you to track the location of your friends in real time.

The feature is borrowed from its parent company Facebook, who experimented with a version of the feature on Messenger and on the Facebook app over the last few years.

WhatsApp announced that it would be rolling out the feature on both iOS and Android over the coming weeks.

To use the feature, you can set a timer for how long you want to share your location, and everyone you’ve chosen to send your location to can see where you are on a map in real time. If multiple people share their locations, then the icons will all show up on the one map and you can track the progress of your friends.

The feature, which you can opt-in to from any chat, allows others to view your exact location for fifteen minutes, an hour, or eight hours.

Users can stop sharing their location whenever they want or else simply let the location sharing expire.

WhatsApp have promised that Live Location is end-to-end encrypted like all it’s other messaging functions.

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Topics:

Tech,WhatsApp