5 Risks That Come With Using Location Sharing

In the past few years, location sharing has become increasingly common. The feature is now integrated into many messaging and social media apps, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Snapchat, and you'll also find it in navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze. Location sharing is undoubtedly useful, allowing you to share your precise location with family, friends, and people you trust. Given how widely the feature is integrated and used, people may not think twice about enabling or using location sharing. But the feature has its downsides, and anyone who values safety and privacy should not overlook them.

The biggest risk of location sharing is that it can reveal your precise location to people you may not know or trust, if configured certain ways. This means others can get an idea of where you live, your place of work, and spots you frequently visit. If this information falls into the wrong hands, it can be used for stalking, harassment, impersonation attempts, scams, and even theft.

Besides, it's not just the other person who has access to your location — the app you are using may also have access to that data. And if the app is compromised, threat actors can potentially gain access to your location history. This happened in the past with Gravy Analytics, a data broker that was hacked. While most apps that feature location sharing have strong security measures to protect user data, data breaches remain a possibility — one that you should always be mindful of.

One of the most significant physical risks with location sharing is stalking. Someone with ulterior motives could potentially track your location and monitor your movements, depending on how you have things configured. Remember, location-stalking doesn't always require precise location tracking through Instagram Map or Snap Map. Even without real-time updates, geo-tagged photos can give away your location, especially if posted on a public profile. So, if you have shared your precise location through any of these apps, it's important to carefully review and limit users who can access it. Apart from that, you can utilize built-in safety features like Ghost Mode on Snap Map.

Another overlooked physical risk is that of theft. When people know about your daily routine through location sharing, including the time you leave for work and when you get back home, they may have an idea about when there's no one at home. Similarly, sharing geo-tagged photos of family vacations on social media platforms makes it obvious that your house is empty. Location sharing alone doesn't cause burglaries, but it may make it easier for burglars. Additionally, location sharing can increase the risk of unwanted confrontations, which is a major safety risk.

As surprising as it may sound, many apps track your activity and store your location history, including the specific places you have visited in the recent past. While most apps are transparent about how they handle this data, a few are not, especially ones from less-reputable developers. These malicious apps often harvest your location history and sell it to third parties. The information is then used to serve targeted ads.

That's why it's a good idea to regularly review app permissions on your smartphone, identify the ones that don't need access to location, and revoke those permissions. Additionally, verify whether the app's location history actually benefits you. If it doesn't, consider disabling the feature. You also can't ignore the possibility of a data breach exposing your location history to threat actors.

Lastly, your location history can be used to scam or impersonate you. For instance, if malicious actors know that you are on a vacation, they could send fake emails regarding your booking that redirect you to potentially harmful websites. Advancements in AI have also made it harder to identify phishing emails since the typical, telltale spelling and grammatical mistakes are no longer present. Besides, when bad actors gain access to your location history, they also get an idea about where you live and work, your daily habits, and the places you frequent, making it easier to impersonate you. All that said, it's important to understand that location sharing isn't inherently problematic or unsafe — these issues largely come down to how it's set up.