No More Excuses, WhatsApp Just Introduced Real Time Location Sharing

We’re pretty sure most of us have made that statement at least once even though we had literally just rolled out of bed or stepped out of the house.

Now, you won’t have to tell white lies anymore because WhatsApp now allows you to share your location in real time!

On Wednesday, the popular text messaging application announced on its blog that it is rolling out a new ‘Live Location’ feature as “a simple and secure way to let people know where you are”.

As you know, WhatsApp already gives you the option to share your current location with your contacts, but that was only a static one-time share.

The latest feature updates your location in real time, even when the application is running in the background. In other words, people can start tracking you lah.

This feature is encrypted end-to-end, just like the other WhatsApp messaging functions. You’re able to control who you share with and for how long. You can even stop sharing at any given time or let the share duration expire.

This is how it works. Open the chat with the person or group you want to share with (duh), attach your ‘Location’ just like how you normally do and select the new option to ‘Share Live Location’.

Then, choose how long you want your live location to be active for from one of the presets – 15 minutes, 1 hour (default) or 8 hours. You can also add a comment below if you want to emphasise that you’re actually “otw”.

Each person you share with will then be able to see your real time location on a map. When more than one person share their location in a group, you’ll be able to see everyone on the same map.

We believe this new ‘Live Location’ feature is one to help us let our loved ones know that we’re safe or simply to share our commute in good name, and not really to track or stalk anyone.

So, let’s start being truthful about being “on the way” to meet a friend or family member, shall we?