Can a child stop sharing their position?

Yes, always. Fenzly does not lock a child’s sharing: a guardian chooses which sharing modes are offered, the child decides whether sharing is on. What child mode adds is that the guardians can be told about the stop.

How a child stops

• By choosing “Off” in the circle’s Sharing tab, when a guardian left that choice checked. Nobody is alerted; the members simply see that the child no longer shares their position, as for any member.
• From the Settings, in every case: by turning off “Position sharing” or “Geolocation”, or by turning on “Offline mode”. Logging out of the app stops the sharing too. These stops apply to all their circles.

When a guardian unchecked “Off” for a circle, the “Off” card is greyed out there on the child’s phone, and a note under the choices says where to stop: turn off “Position sharing” in the settings, with an “Open the settings” button.

What the child sees before stopping

If a guardian is to be told, the app first asks for a confirmation: “Stop sharing?”, followed by the names of those who will be told, for example “Sophie and Marc will be told.” The child can cancel. If they confirm, the guardians are told, then the sharing stops. A line stays in their conversation with each guardian: “You stopped sharing your position. Sophie was notified”.

Resuming

The child resumes by turning back on what they turned off, or by choosing an allowed mode in the circle’s Sharing tab. The guardians who were told about the stop are told about the resume as well. A guardian can ask them to resume: the child then gets “Sophie is asking you to share your position again”, with a button that lifts whatever stops the sharing. The guardian cannot do it for them.

What does not change

• The SOS button works even when sharing is stopped: during an alert, their position reaches the alerted members whatever their settings. See How does the SOS button work?.
• A child cannot leave, by themselves, the circle they are a child in.

The stop notice, the resume notice and a guardian’s request are end-to-end encrypted: the server does not know that a child stopped or resumed sharing. For the guardian’s side, see My child stopped sharing their position: how am I told, and what can I do?.