A user does not show up in “People nearby” unless they enable the function. Doing so triggers a warning from Telegram informing you your location is about to be published and it may lead to undesired attention so it really can’t happen by accident.
I’m also using the app on iOS, the operating system asks periodically if I want to continue sharing location in the background (in case I forget to turn it off) or I can just choose to enable it while using the app (which is what I usually do).
Yeah, it seems pretty explicit that you're making your location public when you press this button. I'd say the 'bug' is in people not realising that pushing their location to a 'show users near me' function inherently reveals their location to some degree of accuracy.
it's a privacy issue. Users who enable the feature don't understand that are basically publishing thier latitude longitude online. Which can be resolved into a home address.
Blanket stating that users don't understand is pretty dismissive and frankly quite patronising. I'm a big privacy advocate, so I don't personally like volunteering location info, but personally know lots of people who will happily do so for all sorts of reasons (e.g. seeing each other on snapchat maps), they understand what they're doing. Simple fact is, plenty of people just _don't care_ and that is their right to do so.
I think most people (including myself) may not have a good understanding what nefarious things this could be used for exactly. I don't have a stalker, and I don't think the risk of a targeted burglary is all that high in my case, what else could someone do with this to harm me?
The message posted upthread (https://i.imgur.com/PDnMmQV.png) definitely does not say it will publish your location/address. It says people will be able to view your "profile".
Does the message say “everyone in the world” or just “people nearby”? I think my parents would assume that “nearby” meant people physically in the vicinity!
Well, same pitfall: if someone is nearby is determined by the client and can be spoofed. Technically you could check a GeoIP database and also usecell phone + wifi information to make it harder. All of which can be chosen by the client (apart from the IP, but thats also not a big deterrent)
I’m also using the app on iOS, the operating system asks periodically if I want to continue sharing location in the background (in case I forget to turn it off) or I can just choose to enable it while using the app (which is what I usually do).