WhatsApp rolls out real-time location-sharing feature for iOS and Android

On Tuesday, October 19, the Facebook-owned messaging app announced Live Location, a new feature that lets you share your real-time coordinates with one or more WhatsApp chat buddies. It’s encrypted end to end to ensure privacy, Facebook says, and has an expiration timer that automatically stops location sharing after a predefined window.

Here’s how to use it: When you’re texting someone (or a group of someones) in WhatsApp, tap the Location menu under the plus-shaped Attach button. Hit Share live location, add a comment, and choose how long you’d like your coordinates to remain public. Tap the Send button, and you’re good to go — your WhatsApp friends can see you now.

WhatsApp

Multiple people can share their locations at the same time, in which case they’ll populate WhatsApp’s in-app map all at once. And it’s platform agnostic — location sharing will roll out to Android and iOS users in the coming weeks.

Live Location isn’t Facebook’s first experiment with location sharing, interestingly. In 2015, the social network added a one-tap location sharing to Messenger, and in May tested a real-time location feature that shared your whereabouts for an hour at a time.

But while competitors like Google have been relatively quick to embrace real-time social mapping, Facebook has taken a more cautious approach. There’s a reason: Back in 2015, Messenger grabbed headlines for sharing users’ location information without their knowledge.

History might look kindly on Facebook’s recalcitrance. When Snapchat rolled out its location-sharing Snap Map feature earlier this year, privacy advocates and law enforcement officials accused it of “encouraging a […] flash mob mentality” and “[enabling] bad actors.”

“There is that risk of real bad actors […] someone stalking and someone being able to locate someone in the real world,” Michael Kasdan, an attorney specializing in privacy at Wiggin and Dana, told CNBC. “Teenage users […] don’t necessarily think about the privacy implications.”