Geo-tracking is one of the most common features in mobile apps across all platforms, and allows to either keep track of friends who are already included in a contact list, or discover new ones by using location targeting.
According to Spanish tech news site Microsoft Place, Microsoft is rumored to be working on integrating “People Sense” into Windows 10 for phones. The feature will be able to detect proximity of a list of selected trusted contacts, and provide instant messaging and calling integration.
The build discovered by Microsoft Place dates back to February 17th, which corroborates its validity as a potential, real feature that Windows 10 for phones might eventually include.
In the video, we can see People Sense in action.
Microsoft’s own “Find my Phone”?
People Sense, in many ways, takes the basic idea behind Apple’s Find My Phone, and makes it social, allowing any number of selected contacts from the People app, to know where we are and interact, including the owner of the phone.
Microsoft’s push to develop universal apps will likely result in People Sense being available of PCs and tablets alike, turning this app into a very powerful tool for local law enforcement to counteract any number of criminal activities where knowing the location of a device may be crucial, without necessarily having to log into a person’s account.
For example, if a person’s phone is stolen, the user could simply log into a different device, either logged in as oneself, or another trusted user, and lookup the current location of the phone, pointing the authorities in the right direction.
People Sense, Common Sense
Of course, while extremely useful, People Sense needs to function without exploits that could actually turn the application into a liability for users. The ability to restrict the feature to trusted users is one step in the right direction, however it’s important to close the loop and ensure that those trusted individual have a way to account for themselves, either through two-step authentication, biometric identification, or other ways to verify that a person is truly who they say they are, especially as social networking apps often add many seemingly unknown contacts automatically, once granted certain privileges.