Privacy respecting location tracking without phone (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by pound_heap@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Hey all,

I'm looking for something that can track location of my preschooler who starts new school soon. He's too young to get a smartphone, so I have to rule out app based solutions I guess.

My initial research found virtually nothing. One candidate is GeoZilla, which sells nice devices and their pivacy policy looks okayish regarding location data, but it still relies on their servers of course. Another option would be an iWatch, which again puts trust into 3rd party, and the device is quite expensive for a small kid.

Any privacy-oriented trackers out there that I'm missing. Maybe there are some smartphone alternatives that can have cell connectivity and GPS and apps installed, but with much simpler interface?

Update: Thanks everyone! I got GeoZilla tag for now. The app doesn't require personal information, which is good. However, it's annoyingly reminds to enable location for itself to track "me", which I don't need at all. Garmin came as a strong second, mainly due to my child age. Garmin devices are not for very young kids, I believe. And it costs more than GeoZilla. I still have some time to think if I really want this, though. It's not too late to return GeoZilla tag

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[-] starlord@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Disclaimer: I don't have a suggestion for you. Just a thought experiment.

I rate a product/service against a bunch of things, like privacy, ease of use, utility, necessity, etc., and come to an important radio.

I have a similar scenario (very young spectrum child), so I tried this.

It's gonna be hard to geo track anything without sharing the data unless you can launch your own satellites.

The trigger scenarios (natural disasters, kidnappers, or just general/accidental negligence/happenstance) really feel like fringe cases. While the utility of the tracking in these scenarios would be extremely high, the likelihood of their necessity is incredibly low. Especially given that the caretakers have already been extended enough trust to leave such a precious asset in their unmonitored care, so it may stand to reason that they can be entrusted to react and take care correctly in these cases.

I think the cost to benefit radio is a little off. I totally see the value, I just wonder if it isn't too much effort/expense.

this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023

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