4 Situations When Live Location Sharing Could Save a Life
Serious things that you should consider
With modern technology, it’s very easy to share your live location using your mobile phone. You canshare your location from your Android, or track your family members by having them share their own location from any mobile device.
Some people evenfake their locationjust so they can cover up things that they’re up to or protect their privacy.
However, the most useful purpose of live location sharing is protecting your personal security. There are many situations where letting people know your location will help you stay safe and others informed of your immediate surroundings.
1. Walking in Public at Night
Your odds of being victimized while walking in public at night aren’t extremely high, but they may be higher than you expect.
According to theBureau of Justice, men have a 37% chance and women have a 22% chance of getting robbed at least one or more times in their lifetime. Men have an 82% chance and women have a 62% chance of getting assaulted at least once in their lives.
These odds are even higher at night, when potential thieves feel like they use the cover of darkness.
By highlighting your location, you can get help sent to you much more quickly. Those few extra seconds can make the difference between life and death when you have someone standing in front of you holding a knife or a gun.
There are a few good ways to set up this kind of emergency location sharing.
On an iPhone, you can use the built-in Emergency SOS system to trigger a 911 call. The Emergency SOS app immediately texts all your emergency contacts with your current location.
The Phone app that comes default on Android phones has a similar feature. When you use it to dial 911, your phone will display your address in text and on a map so you can read your location aloud to the 911 operator.
A couple of other apps that can do this include:
It’s important to install these apps or prepare your phone ahead of time so you’re always ready to act immediately in an emergency any time you’re walking alone at night.
2. Never Go Lost While Hiking
Hiking is a fantastic pastime. It’s a great way to stay healthy, enjoy the great outdoors, and live in a spirit of exploration and adventure.
There’s much to see out in the wilderness. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most likely places where people get lost.
All it takes is stepping off a trail for just a very short distance, and it’s extremely easy to get turned around. Everything looks the same in every direction, and then the panic sets in.
The sad thing about this is that thanks to modern technology it’s extremely easy to use live location sharing to avoid getting lost or find your way back if you do get lost.
The following live location apps can help you stay on track, even when you feel like you’re completely lost in any forest.
The beauty of these and other live location apps is that they can tell you where you are even when you are clueless. They can also help emergency responders find you by letting you give your exact longitude and latitude coordinates if you still can’t find your way out.
3. Live Location Sharing During Business Trips
One of the most useful ways live location sharing comes in handy is putting your family at ease when you’re on a business trip. Help your spouse and children worry less bysharing your live location using the Google Maps appduring the duration of your trip.
All they have to do is check their app using the link you’ve sent and they can see your current location at any time.
It can provide tremendous peace of mind for the rest of the family whenever any family member is traveling over a long distance.
There are a lot of other ways apps can use your live location to help you during a business trip.
4. Keep Your Kids on a Digital Leash
There is nothing quite as terrifying as losing your small children in the middle of a crowd. This scenario is especially likely when you’re at certain locations like a festival or a theme park. It’s not only a scary experience for you, but also for your kids.
Make sure live location sharing is enabled on your children’s phone. You can either enable Google Maps live location sharing for the entire duration of the trip, or you can use one of the many otherapps that let you track your children in real time.
Connect and Protect Yourself
Mobile phones and apps get a lot of blame. But they can also be life saving devices. Making a call to let your loved ones know is an active way to give them peace of mind. You can take it a step further by using live location sharing to keep them in the loop.
Ryan has been writing how-to and other technology-based articles online since 2007. He has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering and he’s worked 13 years in automation engineering, 5 years in IT, and now is an Apps Engineer.Read Ryan’s Full Bio
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