Location Sharing That Stays Their Choice

For families living with dementia, one of the most common worries is what happens when a loved one leaves the house unexpectedly. It might be a walk to the corner shop that becomes confusing, or a moment of restlessness in the early evening. These moments are frightening for everyone involved — the person who finds themselves unsure of where they are, and the family member who discovers they are gone.

OurTurn approaches location with care and respect. This is not surveillance: it is something your loved one agrees to. OurTurn: My Day asks them once, in plain words, whether they want to share where their phone is with the family. Only a yes on their own phone turns it on — the family cannot switch it on for them — and they can turn it off at any time from the Help screen.

Simply knowing where to start looking, if you ever need to, can remove a layer of everyday worry.

You can mark familiar places — home, a relative's house, a favourite park — as safe zones on a map, each with its own name and radius. If their phone reports a position outside all of them, the family gets a notification in the OurTurn Caregiver app, and the alert is listed on the Location page with the reported position.

Alerts are designed to be informative without being alarmist. The notification on your lock screen is neutral and names no one unless you choose to show details, and you will not get a new one every few minutes while they are out.

An alert depends on the phone: it has to be with them, switched on, connected and allowed to share. So an alert — or no alert — never tells you on its own that someone is safe. If you are worried, call them, or ask someone nearby to check.

The Location page shows where their phone last reported, when, and how precise that position was, on a map — on the web and in the OurTurn Caregiver app. If the position is old, the page says so. If your loved one has turned sharing off, you see a calm note that sharing is off.

Everyone in your Family Circle sees the same information, so whoever is closest can help. Nobody outside your family can see it.

Location data is handled with the same privacy standards we apply to everything in OurTurn. It is encrypted in transit and at rest, deleted automatically after 30 days, and deleted at once if your loved one turns sharing off. It is never shared with third parties or used for advertising.

We know that asking your loved one to carry a charged phone is already a challenge. OurTurn does not keep GPS running at full power: the phone reports a new position after it has moved a meaningful distance, using balanced accuracy, to go easy on the battery.

Nothing is hidden from your loved one. While sharing is on, their phone shows it — a small notification on Android, the location indicator on iPhone — and the Help screen always has the switch to pause it.

If the phone loses signal or the battery runs out, you see the last reported position with its time. When the phone is back online, new positions arrive on their own.