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OP does not know about Life360.
At least the other has to install it of their own will
Or, "hey we've been doing this for the police and gov't for free and we have the tech so why not sell it?"
I have been thinking about how or if I would track my own children. I do not have any at the moment though.
I think the only system that would work with tracking and still be ethical is a system with accountability.
They need to know that I would never check unless there was an emergency. So we'd have to have some sort of immutable log that they can check regularly. So they know if I checked their location. It should not be like a panopticon. in which they don't know if the parent is checking their location or not. That changes behaviour. Even with the trust that I would not check, just me having the option would alter behaviour probably.
Youth and kids are independent individuals with their own rights to privacy, autonomy, right to select their own friends and acquaintences, right to freedom of expression and movement, right to make mistakes, etc. If they are thought right and have a high trust bond with their parents, preferably with little judgement, then it will probably be fine and most issues can be solved.
A reciprocal arrangement would also work. My little terror will soon be at the point of having a mobile phone. My wife and I already share locations in real time. They will get the same arrangement. We can check on them, however, they can also check on our location. Moving on from this, in the future will be a negotiation, not an ultimatum.
It's also worth noting however, that a level of accountability is required with phones and social media for children. Knowing that mum or dad might go through their phone to check things makes them think about what they are doing. It is also required to make sure they don't err too badly. The key is to be open, clear and reasonable in your requirements of them. Also, never mock or belittle. To you, it might be a cute minor kids spat. To them, it's the life or death of their entire social life.
If you have a good relationship with your children, these will be a non-issues. Mutual respect (not fear) is a FAR better position to take, parenting wise.
Knowing that mum or dad might go through their phone to check things makes them ~~think about what they are doing~~ spend 5 minutes researching how to hide stuff. Better to rely on trust then on pure force alone
There's trust in intent and trust in judgement. My goal is to train them so that I can trust their intent. Any search will be to cover lapses in judgement. If they are hiding things, then that is intentional. If they have thought about it enough to hide it, then at least they have thought about it.
My intent is to spot things like grooming, or bullying (at a level they can't cope with). Things they might not understand the severity at the time. It gives us a nuclear option, it won't be used lightly.
Yeah making it optional for them to turn on because they are still entitled to privacy even though they are children is the key to building trust. Them trusting you as a parent is the most essential thing here, there is always a way around something, you want them being honest by choice rather than sneaky or you forcing "honesty" by coercion.
We always did that from when the kids were younger and my now adult daughter still chooses to turn it on when going on dates.
This is a useful feature. If you are in an abusive household, then yes you should have as much financial separation as possible. For those that are in a happy and functional family with kids that you want to allow freedom for, this provides a measure of safety if you need it for potential emergency's or if they aren't answering the phone or whatever.
Unpopular opinion: Your kids do not actually have freedom if you're tracking them.
Even if it is "just for emergencies" and "we don't actually look at it".
I enjoyed a completely untracked childhood, and I will make damn sure my kids can have that too.
Just knowing that your parents trust you is a priceless feeling.
Unpopular opinion: Your kids do not actually have freedom if you’re tracking them.
This is just false, and your definition of 'freedom' is nothing but sophistry.
It can't be false, since it is not a statement of an objective fact.
It is my opinion, based on my personal view of what "freedom" means to me.
If you are in a healthy relationship, you can do this voluntarily and for free using functionality built into the OS or third party apps, without paying your network operator $10/mo
Agreed. My wife and I are both on iOS so there is no need for this feature. Our daughter when she is old enough for a cellphone, would be the one I'd use this for since she can't turn it off.
then yes you should have as much financial separation as possible.
Yeah that's a thing people in abusive households frequently have.
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I share my location with my wife just in case I end up in a ditch dying while riding my motorcycle.
Same here even without dangerous activities. I may look up where my partner is at the end of the working day. Still in the office? May be a rough day, I can think about some nice dinner and serve a glass of wine 30 seconds before she comes back home.
Weird kins of romance :-) We do that to :-)
I have very mixed feelings about androids crash detection. The personal privacy is fine but - fucking google.
My fiance triggers his all the time by air drumming or throwing his phone around haha.
It'll be like "were you in a crash?? Do you wanna call 911??"
Didn't know there existed a crash detection function. I just share my location to her all the time. She does the same. Yeah I agree but I rather let my wife relax than not knowing. My point is that not all loses of privacy have to be bad.
Especially since you can selfhost the server for location sharing!
Tell me more :-)
I've only taken a glimpse at this myself, have not even started setting it up) I'm looking at Owntracks, for example.
Nice, have to look into that. Thanks !
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Not a new thing, and I can definitely see good uses for this information. What they should have done is made it so that the one being tracked gets a log and real time notification any time someone is tracking them. This would alleviate some of the toxic spying behavior simply by making it transparent rather than covert.
This is going to get DV victims killed. At least on phone tracking like iPhone's family sharing makes it clear it's happening and often has a way of disabling it when you make your final run for it allowing you to keep your phone.
Your toxic partner: "What were you doing at that cafe at 5:42 PM"
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this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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Privacy
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