WhatsApp Introduces Its Own Encrypted 'Live Location' Sharing Feature

WhatsApp announced that users can share their location in real time with people on their contact list.

The popular messaging app borrowed the feature from its parent Facebook. The social giant has rolled out temporary location sharing on its Messenger app back in May 2017, having experimented the idea in different formats within the app and also inside its Facebook app.

For WhatsApp, the feature is called 'Live Location'. A version of this feature was tested earlier in 2017.

To use the feature, users can select 'Location' when they open a chat with another person or group. Taping on the 'Share Live Location' enables the user to set a timer for how long they want to share their location.

After that, everyone users have chosen to send their location can see where they are on a map in real time. WhatsApp users can share their location for fifteen minutes, an hour and 8 hours.

What's more, Live Location can also be used for multiple people sharing locations simultaneously, as people's icons will then appear on the same map.

Sharing your current location with someone is already a great passive (and also aggressive) way to say that you're on your way. However, it also has other uses, like making sure that someone gets home all right.

The feature just makes sharing more interesting.

For those that concern privacy, WhatsApp promises that, like all of its other messaging functions, Live Location is end-to-end encrypted. The timer also serves as a security function. If users somehow forgot to turn off the feature, after the set amount of time pass, the feature will turn off automatically.

sers can turn off the location sharing feature manually at any time after turning it on.

With WhatsApp having its own location sharing feature, it's joining Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Telegram, Snapchat, Foursquare, Glimpse and some others offering similar but unique feature.

Published: 
17/10/2017