Snapchat is rolling out a new feature to let users share their real-time location for 15 minutes or a few hours with friends.
The feature is supposed to be a temporary buddy system while friends and family are on the way home or elsewhere.
“Make sure you and your friends get home safely with temporary location-sharing,” Snapchat posted in a tweet late on Friday.
The feature is similar to the Find My app on iOS, where users who’ve opted in can see and share precise locations.
The feature is only available between mutual friends on the app.
For the feature, Snapchat has partnered with the non-profit It’s On Us to help young people keep each other safe — online and in real life — and combat campus sexual assault.
“Through a new safety tool in the Snap Map and an expansion of the in-app resource portal ‘Here For You,’ Snapchat and It’s On Us are helping students look out for one another and creating a safer space for students across the country,” according to the company.
In order to lower the risk of stalking or being pressured to share location constantly, users can pause sharing without sending the other party a notification.
For safety reasons, there isn’t an option for users to send their real-time location details to all of their Snapchat friends.
This update is the first live location feature for Snapchat.
Snapchat has 319 million daily active users (DAUs) — a 20 percent growth (on-year). The instant messaging platform Snapchat has crossed 100 million monthly users in India.
