StayKnown Location & Live Safety Policy for Visit sessions, SOS alerts, chat maps, and approved contacts.

1) Location safety summary

StayKnown uses location to help users share safety context with trusted people. Location may support active Visits, LIVE map sharing, SOS alerts, manual emergency capture, chat map context, approved-contact visibility, place labels, safety history, and abuse prevention. Location access must remain lawful, permission-based, and safety-focused.

2) Purpose of location and live safety features

StayKnown was created to reduce uncertainty when people are moving, visiting, meeting someone, travelling, commuting, chatting with trusted contacts, or facing a possible safety concern. The location system exists to support awareness, trust, and faster human response from people the user chose or approved.

• To help a user share where they are during an active Visit.
• To help approved contacts understand a user’s last known safety context during LIVE sharing.
• To support SOS alerts with location and readable area context where available.
• To support manual emergency capture during an active Visit.
• To support chat map context between approved contacts where the chat feature requires location metadata.
• To help users and contacts understand whether an alert is current, delayed, approximate, or limited.
• To protect against misuse, stalking, harassment, fake alerts, repeated unwanted contact, and abusive location behavior.

3) How StayKnown location sharing works

StayKnown location sharing is not meant to be an always-on public tracker. It is connected to specific safety flows that the app controls, such as Visit sessions, SOS, manual capture, and approved-contact chat.

• A user must grant required device permissions before location features can work.
• The app may capture coordinates, accuracy, captured time, place label, and related safety metadata.
• Approved contacts may receive a link, notification, email, app notice, or map view depending on the feature.
• The live map may show current or last known location depending on app state, device state, network state, and provider availability.
• Chat map views may describe the sender’s safety context connected to the message, not a full public live-tracking profile.
• Place labels may be generated through map/geocoding services to make coordinates easier for humans to understand.

4) Approved contacts and consent boundaries

StayKnown is built around trusted and approved contact relationships. A person should not be placed into a safety role secretly, deceptively, or against their will.

• Emergency contacts and SOS responders may require approval before receiving certain safety access.
• Contacts must not be added for intimidation, spam, harassment, stalking, retaliation, or pressure.
• If a contact declines, blocks additions, asks to be removed, or withdraws consent, that boundary must be respected.
• A contact’s access should match the user’s permitted safety flow; being a contact does not give unlimited access to all private data.
• StayKnown may keep approval and consent records to prevent disputes, prove authorization, and protect users.
• Approved contacts must use information responsibly and must not publish, sell, shame, exploit, threaten, or misuse a user’s location.

5) Visit sessions and LIVE map sharing

A Visit session is a user-controlled safety flow that can help approved contacts understand where the user is during a selected movement, meeting, trip, or safety-relevant activity.

• A Visit may include start time, expected context, destination, live state, captured location, place label, and update history.
• LIVE sharing may show a user’s current or last known safety position while the Visit is active.
• Ending a Visit may stop or reduce live sharing depending on the feature and session state.
• A delayed, stale, or unavailable location should not be treated as guaranteed real-time truth.
• Approved contacts should call the user, check other reliable sources, or contact official emergency services if they reasonably believe there is danger.
• Users should keep their phone charged, location permission enabled, mobile data available, and battery restrictions managed during safety sessions.

6) SOS alerts and manual emergency capture

SOS and manual capture features are designed to help a user send urgent safety context to trusted contacts. They do not guarantee rescue, police response, ambulance response, fire response, or official intervention.

• SOS may include activation time, emergency state, user identity, safety gallery context, location, map link, place label, and contact notification records.
• Manual emergency capture may send an extra location update during an active Visit without changing the normal tracking rhythm.
• StayKnown may require confirmation, verification, or stronger stop flows to reduce accidental SOS ending.
• False SOS alerts, fake emergencies, prank alerts, swatting, or repeated abusive manual captures are prohibited.
• Contacts who receive SOS should use judgment, call the user where possible, and contact official emergency services if appropriate.
• In Nigeria, users and contacts should follow applicable local emergency and law-enforcement channels. In the U.S., U.K., EU, and other countries, use the official emergency number for that location.

7) Chat location map and safety-message context

StayKnown Chat may include location metadata so approved contacts understand where a safety message came from. This is different from the full Visit LIVE map. The chat map is meant to describe the sender’s safety context for that communication.

• A chat message may include latitude, longitude, accuracy, captured time, client tag, and readable place label where supported.
• The receiver may see a map icon or chat map view connected to the message.
• The map should identify the sender/context clearly so the approved contact knows whose safety location they are viewing.
• Chat location context should not be used to stalk, pressure, threaten, monitor, expose, or shame a user.
• If location is disabled or unreliable, StayKnown may block sending or show a friendly warning because safety context cannot be captured reliably.
• Chat translation, voice notes, media, stickers, and message content remain subject to the Privacy Policy, Terms, and Acceptable Use rules.

8) Location accuracy, map labels, and provider limits

StayKnown may use GPS, device services, network signals, map providers, and geocoding providers to turn coordinates into understandable safety context. This helps contacts read locations like areas, roads, landmarks, hospitals, schools, public buildings, or nearby places where providers support those labels.

• Location may be precise, approximate, delayed, stale, missing, or wrong.
• Buildings, roads, borders, schools, hospitals, government buildings, and landmarks may not always appear or may be outdated depending on map data.
• Reverse-geocoded labels may describe a nearby area instead of the exact door, room, floor, compound, estate, or shop.
• Rural areas, low-network zones, thick buildings, markets, campuses, highways, and poor GPS environments can reduce accuracy.
• Map providers such as TomTom, OpenCage, Mapbox, or other services may have outages, rate limits, coverage differences, or label errors.
• A location shown on StayKnown should be treated as safety context, not a legally certified or emergency-dispatch-grade position.

9) VPN safety gate and network reliability

StayKnown may warn, restrict, or block certain flows when VPN behavior, network routing, spoofing, device settings, or suspicious signals can reduce safety reliability.

• VPN usage may hide or confuse network context and may reduce StayKnown’s ability to assess safety-location reliability.
• If a VPN is active before app launch, StayKnown may show a safety gate or block usage until the VPN is turned off.
• If VPN is enabled during an active Visit, StayKnown may stop or restrict safety flows and may notify contacts where the app is configured to do so.
• The VPN safety gate is not a punishment; it is a reliability and safety-control measure.
• Users must not use VPNs, spoofing tools, modified devices, fake GPS apps, emulators, or bypass methods to mislead contacts or StayKnown systems.

10) Nigeria, United States, United Kingdom, EU, and global usage

StayKnown may be used by people in different countries, but emergency systems, privacy laws, telecom reliability, map coverage, and legal expectations differ by location. Users and contacts must follow the law and emergency procedures of the country where the safety event happens.

• In Nigeria, StayKnown should be used as a safety-awareness and trusted-contact tool, not as a replacement for police, ambulance, fire service, FRSC, NSCDC, NEMA, state emergency agencies, private security, hospitals, or local emergency channels.
• Network conditions, power issues, road conditions, rural coverage, market congestion, campuses, estates, and building density can affect update speed and accuracy.
• Contacts in Nigeria should call the user first where safe, contact family or trusted responders, and use appropriate local emergency or law-enforcement channels if danger is suspected.
• Users must not use StayKnown to threaten, monitor, shame, extort, track, or control another person. Nigerian users must respect privacy, consent, criminal law, civil rights, and local safety rules.

• In the United States, StayKnown is not 911, a public safety answering point, law enforcement, EMS, fire department, or rescue provider.
• If there is immediate danger, users and contacts should call 911 or the correct local emergency number.
• Users must respect consent, protective orders, anti-stalking laws, harassment laws, privacy laws, school rules, workplace rules, and state-specific location privacy expectations.

• In the U.K. and EU, users and contacts should use official emergency channels such as 999, 112, or the correct local number where immediate help is needed.
• European users may have stronger privacy, consent, data minimization, transparency, and rights requirements for location and safety data.
• In any country, users must not use StayKnown in a way that violates local privacy, employment, school, family, child-protection, stalking, harassment, telecom, sanctions, or emergency-service laws.

11) Prohibited misuse of location features

• No stalking, harassment, intimidation, threats, coercive control, retaliation, or surveillance.
• No hidden tracking of a partner, ex-partner, child, employee, student, tenant, customer, stranger, protected person, or vulnerable person without lawful basis and required consent.
• No using StayKnown to violate restraining orders, protective orders, custody orders, school restrictions, workplace restrictions, or no-contact instructions.
• No fake SOS, prank alerts, false emergencies, hoax reports, swatting, or repeated manual captures designed to scare people.
• No exposing, posting, selling, leaking, or sharing another person’s location outside the intended safety flow.
• No fake GPS, spoofing, VPN bypass, modified app behavior, automation, scraping, or attempts to defeat safety gates.
• No using map information to facilitate theft, assault, kidnapping, trafficking, exploitation, extortion, doxxing, or violence.

12) Location data retention and legal handling

StayKnown may retain location and safety records for service operation, user history, notification delivery, support, abuse prevention, legal compliance, security, dispute handling, and emergency or law-enforcement request handling.

• Live session records may be retained for history, reliability, and safety auditing.
• SOS and manual capture records may be retained because they can involve urgent safety context.
• Chat map metadata may be retained with message history and safety records where applicable.
• Consent and approved-contact records may be retained to prove authorization and prevent disputes.
• Some records may be preserved longer where required by law, safety concern, legal hold, abuse investigation, fraud prevention, or official request.
• Deletion requests may be limited where retention is legally permitted or required for safety, fraud prevention, security, or compliance.

13) Contact and related policies

For location privacy questions, live map concerns, contact approval issues, safety misuse, abuse reports, or legal concerns, contact StayKnown support.

• Support: support@stay-known.com
• Use Abuse Reporting for stalking, harassment, unwanted tracking, impersonation, or fake emergency concerns.
• Use Law Enforcement & Emergency Requests for valid official requests, emergency preservation, or legal process.
• Use Security Disclosure for vulnerability reports or platform-integrity concerns.