Who knows where you are right now? Your friends, your boss? Maybe your parents? How about your partner? According to recent research by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, “nearly 1 in 5 young people believe it’s OK to track their partner whenever they want”.

As a long-term and stubbornly-vocal privacy advocate, I find this alarming. It’s hard to imagine a bigger red flag than someone wanting to keep tabs on my daily movements. It’s not that I’m doing anything remotely secretive: my days are most often spent working from home, punctuated by trips to the bakery – scandalous! But it’s not about whether I have anything to hide from my partner. Everyone ought to have the right to keep things to themselves, and choose when they do or don’t share.

After reading this study I became troubled by a niggling feeling that perhaps I’m standing alone in the corner of the party while all my friends share their locations with one another. So I conducted a highly unscientific survey of people in my life. As it turns out, aside from a small handful who share my resistance, lots of people are indeed keeping digital tabs on one another.

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Many constantly share their location with their partner, or use apps like Life360 or Find My Friends. Some groups of friends all do it together, and talk of it as a kind of digital closeness where physical distance and the busyness of life keeps them apart (I assure myself that I’m not invited to the tracking party for obvious reasons). Others use apps to keep familial watch over older relatives – especially when their health may be in decline. Obviously this is anecdotal, but it........

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