How Travelers Can Use Google's New Safety App
Google introduced a new safety app on Monday that allows your closest friends and family members to see your location, even when your phone is offline.
The app, called Trusted Contacts, is intended to help you feel safe and give your friends and family peace of mind, according to a statement.
To use the service, you designate contacts with whom you want to share your location. If traveling or hiking, you can send a notification to the contacts to let them know you have safely arrived at your destination.
Friends and family who are part of this trusted list can also request to see your location. If you are safe, you can deny the request, but if you don't respond within a certain amount of time the location will be sent to the person who requested it.
Travelers will be able to use this app to let their friends know that theyve landed at their destination, arrived at their hotel, or even summited the top of a mountain.
It could be especially useful for solo travelers, as the app can help rescue services locate a person even if their phone is offline.
Facebook has used its own similar safety check that allows users to mark themselves safe in the wake of a natural disaster, terror attack or other such event. Unlike Facebook's check-in feature, however, users do not have to actively do anything, or even be online for their trusted contacts to find out where they are in an emergency.
The app is only available for Android, though an iOS version will be available soon, according to the same press release.
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