Are location-tracking apps a privacy risk or a useful tool for loved ones' safety?

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As her 18-year-old son backpacked around Europe last year, Christine Milostnik found reassurance in watching his exact location on her phone through a simple app.

Milostnik said her son had agreed to the arrangement before he left, and it gave both of them peace of mind during his travels.

“I called and said, ‘Oh, you haven’t moved for 24 hours,’ and then he said, ‘Yes, I’m sick’. It was also good for him that someone was looking after him,” she told SBS News.

Milostnik said that, as her children are now grown up, she has largely stopped using location tracking apps, but for years she was comforted by knowing when they returned from school.

She also previously used the apps to monitor her mother with dementia, who would sometimes get lost.

“Having that helped me a lot because there was one day that she got a little bit confused from going to the church in the morning, coming back, and then I could ask a friend of mine to pick her up,” she said.

Putting some ‘nobility’ around it

Despite safety and privacy concerns, an increasing number of Australians are tracking the whereabouts of their children, ageing parents, and sometimes even partners and friends, 24 hours a day, using phone applications such as Life360, Find My iPhone, and Find My Device.

The exact number of people in Australia tracking others or being tracked remains unknown.

Apple said that it doesn’t have access to this information, and Life360 — which has previously reported having more than two million users in Australia — didn’t respond to an SBS News request for information.

Elisabeth Shaw, CEO of Relationships Australia New South Wales, said we find it easy to justify our desire to track loved ones.

“I think part of it is the speed of life,” she told SBS News. “Instead of leaving anything to chance — that ‘I’m not sure when the family’s coming home tonight’ — there’s a need to know.”

“Then we put some nobility around that. We say, well, because life isn’t as safe as it used to be, then this is a reflection of how much I love my family.”

In many ways, Australia is actually safer than it ever was.

The number of offenders police dealt with in 2023–24 was at its lowest recorded level since 2008 to 2009, while we’ve seen a reduction in homicides and robbery, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

However, the number of certain crimes, such as domestic violence-related assaults and sexual assaults, has increased in recent years.

Data from the ABS shows that there were 40,087 victims of sexual assault recorded in Australia in 2024, a 10 per cent increase from the previous year.

Shaw said that, with consent, location-tracking can be an immensely useful safety tool in some situations — such as when a friend tracks another’s first date or someone monitors a loved one’s trip in an Uber.

“There are ways which are very much in the individual’s control, where they can invite people in and then exclude them at other times,” Shaw said.

“I think in those sorts of ways, where there is regular checking in on consent, the clarity of purpose, all of that is actually a great benefit in how we live our lives.”

A normalisation of surveillance?

However, some are concerned by what they consider to be a normalisation of surveillance occurring alongside the uptake of location-tracking apps.

Bridget Harris, director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, told SBS News that society has clearly experienced a shift in norms around privacy.

“That’s how much information we share, the devices we share, and also expectations about that. So, expectations that we are, for instance, findable by our partners, by our children, by everybody,” she said.

She said that, as digital surveillance creeps into ever-more aspects of our lives — work, education, interactions with the government — we come to normalise surveillance in our personal lives.

Research shared by the eSafety Commissioner in May showed that almost one in five young adults aged 18 to 24 think it’s reasonable to expect to track a romantic partner whenever they want.

Harris says the normalisation of location-tracking may lead to victims’ calls for help not being taken seriously.

“If someone’s trying to articulate the violence of their experience … it might be discounted by someone else. They might say, ‘Oh no, that’s really normal. My partner and I do it too,’ but what is actually happening is very different,” she said.

Shaw said it’s “very important” that intimate partners openly discuss the use of such technology.

“Even if someone dresses up their behaviour as good intentions or caring and concern, if the other doesn’t experience it that way, then the issue has to be dealt with.”

Shaw also warns that, even if it’s mutually agreed upon, tracking a partner can shift expectations in a romantic relationship.

“People are judging the speed at which their partner responds: ‘You didn’t respond for an hour, so that means you don’t love me’,” she said.

“We are conflating, sometimes, access with love and devotion.”

‘It’s definitely spying’

Some, like Alyssa Carter, say they would never allow their partners to track their locations.

“I wouldn’t like a partner to track me at all. I think it is absolutely, for myself, an invasion of my own privacy … There is no reason for a partner, as far as I’m concerned, to want to know where you are,” she told SBS News.

Carter has always refused to monitor the whereabouts of her 16-year-old daughter, and says her daughter would be horrified at the suggestion.

“It’s definitely spying … I think she would feel absolutely that it was an invasion of her privacy and her autonomy,” Carter said.

If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.