Geolocating your children: sensible or controlling?
An interesting article in the Financial Times, “Forget privacy, young internet users want to be tracked”, looks at how young people seem to be more than happy sharing their location with their family or friends, both for safety and convenience.
This is not the first article I have read about this aspect of Generation Z behavior, and of course it reminded me of the days when my daughter started going on school trips — before smartphones and geolocation apps — and would take a small GPS device in her backpack, which gave us peace of mind. Even during her teenage years, she never had any problem with us knowing her geolocation, and now, in her thirties and with her own family, she continues to share it with us via both Google Maps and her iPhone.
I also share my geolocation, not just with close family members, but with one of my oldest friends, something we started doing when he was living in an earthquake risk zone. At the same time, I avoid sharing my geolocation with most of my apps, except for those it makes sense to do so with; I strongly oppose the sale of data, which is unethical and takes place on an industrial scale. I totally support the decision by Apple to warn users about geolocation tracking in apps installed on their smartphones, a move that upset the filthy data broker market. Similarly, the company set an important…
