Google's Trusted Contacts helps family keeps tabs on you -- if you want them to

Feel unsafe walking home from work alone late at night? Well, now your smartphone can escort you. 

Google has released a new app that allows you to share your location with family and friends, or lets you check in on their location. The app is meant to be used as a safety app, for when people are either lost or feel like they are in danger, but has other use cases, as well. 

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So what is this app? Ron Amadeo has the background:

Google launched a "personal safety app" for Android called Trusted Contacts. The new app offers [a] location-sharing service...that Google envisions for use in emergency situations.
...
After installing the app, you...flag some of your contacts as "trusted." Then you'll be able to send your location to a trusted contact or ask for their location. The...app is built around the "emergency" use case, complete with a dead man's switch for location requests.

A dead man's switch? What does that mean? Philip Michaels explains:

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