Is location-sharing with a love partner making teenagers less safe?

Teenagers who have grown up being tracked and having their location made available to family members and friends via various location-sharing apps now see tracking or being tracked by someone they are dating as quite a normal thing.

The things, however, often take a big turn when a romantic relationship sours and comes to a dead end. In such a case, many people find it very hard to “opt out” with a person who may then use location-sharing to harm, according to academic María Atiénzar Prieto.

Speaking at broadcaster RNZ’s radio programme Nine to Noon, Prieto said that equipping kids, especially teenagers, with the skills to negotiate digital boundaries with people they date can help parents in initiating a conversation about the benefits and risks of location-sharing as early as possible.


Prieto spoke to several Australian teenagers for her recent academic review of young people's perceptions of tech-facilitated coercive control. They told her that location-sharing technology seemed to offer them a lot of benefits.

Young women told her it helped them have a sense of personal safety if they were going home alone after a party, for example, according to RNZ.

Many view location-sharing with romantic partner as act of care: Prieto

Speaking about her experience while interacting with teenagers, Prieto said that many teens said that location-sharing with their partners was something they either did themselves or knew of someone else doing. Many saw it as "an act of care or love or a sign of trust".

“Some of them even mentioned that they will use this type of technology to get insight into the interests of the partner," she told Nine to Noon.

Since location-sharing technology can also turn out to be manipulative or threatening, its safety benefits for youngsters dating can too easily be overpowered by risks, Prieto said. She further stated that the time to start talking to a child about safe digital boundaries in relationships is when they start using smartphones.

Parents need to be transparent with their children: Prieto

Prieto said that parents who want to use location-sharing apps within the family should be transparent with kids from the outset. They should try to communicate about why they feel they're safe within this context but can be risky beyond that.