Stay Safe on Dates: How Your Smartphone Could Be Your Guardian

Want to enhance your safety when meeting new acquaintances? There's a straightforward way! Your phone holds the key.

Dating platforms offer a promising avenue for finding your significant other, yet the inevitable face-to-face meeting introduces certain risks. Exercise caution in these times.

Unbeknownst to many, our smartphones are equipped with features designed to offer a sense of security, particularly during initial meetings with online acquaintances.

On the TikTok account named smartspotcompl, there's a brief clip detailing the operation of the location-sharing feature. The "Let Know" (Check In) function is accessible on Apple devices.

To activate it, simply access the messaging menu, select a trusted contact, and press the plus icon adjacent to their name. Then, opt for the "Let Know" feature and determine the timer for an alert message to be dispatched—should you fail to respond within 15 minutes, your chosen contact will be notified of your location (or, rather, your device's location).

It's important to note that the sender and recipient must possess an Apple iPhone running iOS 17 (or later). This feature is unavailable on Android devices.

Comparable functionalities are also present in Messenger and WhatsApp. It's relevant to highlight that platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp offer similar capabilities.

The Location feature allows you to disclose your whereabouts to a specific contact.

WhatsApp permits the sharing of your immediate location or the continuous relay of your location details.

Simply select the "Location" option within the chat menu. From there, you can share your current location with a friend or initiate location sharing, enabling them to track your movements for a predefined span (you can halt this tracking at any point).