What is location sharing?
Location sharing is the feature in a smartphone or app that lets you share your real-time GPS location with specific people you choose. It's the technology behind family trackers, "meet me here" links, and shared-location messaging. Simple, useful — and worth understanding before you turn it on.
The basics
Every modern smartphone has GPS hardware that knows where it is. Location sharing is what happens when you grant permission for another person (or app) to see that GPS data in real time. The sharing can be:
- One-off — "I'm on my way home, here's my live location for the next hour"
- Ongoing — your family circle sees your location continuously, and you see theirs
- Conditional — only share when geofence boundaries are crossed (arrival/departure alerts)
Where to do it
Apple Find My is built into every iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Tap your profile in Find My, select "Share My Location," choose contacts. Free.
Google Maps location sharing works cross-platform. In Maps, tap your profile, then "Location sharing," then choose a contact and a duration. Free.
Dedicated family trackers (Protego, Life360, Find My Kids) build an ongoing family-circle experience on top of location sharing — geofences, history, mutual visibility for the whole family.
Glympse is built around temporary location sharing for short events — you grant the link, it expires automatically.
Privacy: the question that actually matters
Location sharing the technology is fine. Location sharing the business model can be problematic. Some apps that offer "free" sharing make their revenue by selling aggregated user location data to third-party brokers. That data can be:
- Used to identify individuals despite "anonymization"
- Bought by hedge funds analyzing foot traffic
- Bought by government agencies (multiple documented cases)
- Bought by stalkers through gray-market resellers
Before turning on location sharing in any app, search "[app name] sells location data" and read the current privacy policy. Apple Find My doesn't monetize location. Protego doesn't sell location data. Life360 has historically been criticized for it.
Location sharing in Protego
Protego is built around ongoing family location sharing with mutual visibility. Everyone in the family circle sees everyone — including kids seeing parents. The experience is wrapped in a magical, fantasy-themed aesthetic with wizarding-style avatars on a parchment-style map. Free for circles up to two people; paid plans to grow.