‘HeyPolo’ is a privacy-first family safety & location sharing app

Source Domain: 9to5google.com

Our smartphones can do a lot, but perhaps one of the most underrated things they can do is offer some serious peace of mind for families. That’s a big part of the reason that location sharing apps have been popular for years, but many of them can also be a privacy nightmare. That’s the problem HeyPolo from Surfshark aims to fill – a privacy-first family safety app.

HeyPolo supports location sharing optimized for families, but while respecting your privacy both to the outside world and within the family.

While most location-sharing apps are always on, HeyPolo is designed around time-limited sharing. Family members can set specific repeating times for their location to be shared, or use one-time shares for specific nights out or trips. But if a timer is set, that’s it. The app stops sharing your location as soon as you want it to. You can, of course, enable 24/7 sharing, but it’s completely up to you.

You can also tailor location sharing to include your exact location, a general area, or set it to private mode on a person-by-person or group-by-group basis, giving each family member some level of privacy while still sharing their details. HeyPolo also keeps a log of your trips, but you can similarly choose who can see those past trips and what they can see.

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HeyPolo also features smart notifications, including SOS alerts and the ability to be notified when family members enter or leave a certain location, or even if their battery is getting low. Again, everyone gets full control over the privacy of these sorts of notifications.

There’s also an “Emergency Access” feature that grants someone one-time access to your live location, if you give them permission, in the case location sharing isn’t enabled during an emergency. This can be limited, such as only allowing it once per year, so it isn’t abused.