Why trust Greenbot
Quickly sharing your location with someone isn’t that difficult on any platform these days, but Google has a new idea on how it should work.
Today, Google has officially released its new “Trusted Contacts” app, available beginning today for Android-based handsets. With it, Google wants to make it a bit more straightforward when it comes to sharing your location, but only with people that you trust.
With the app, someone can add their friends and family, people they trust, and those people will be able to request your location at any time. It’s not all just one-sided, though. When one of those trusted contacts request your location you’ll have the opportunity to deny that request, but if you don’t respond at all your location will be provided automatically to the person that requested it.
It should be noted that your phone doesn’t need to be turned on for this new location sharing to work, either — it’s all based on your Google location history.
There’s other information that can be shared, too: your current battery level on your device, and the last time you were active. Users can also send out their location directly to their trusted contacts.
The app is opt-in, and you’ll need a device running Android 4.1 or later to use it. A link to download the new app is available below.
Download
- Trusted Contacts — Free
