How locations work

Every post can carry the place it was captured: the exact spot, just the town or local area, or nothing at all.

Precise is the default of three choices you make for every post. Where it was taken is a fact. How much of that place gets shared is up to you.

Your exact position stays on your phone unless you say otherwise

This is the rule everything else follows. Your phone works out where you are. What leaves the phone depends entirely on which option you pick for that post.

• Approximate sends the name of the town, city, suburb or local area you are in, and the position of its centre. Your own coordinates are never transmitted. They are used on the phone to find that name, and that is all.
• No location sends nothing at all.
• Precise sends your coordinates. It does so only because you chose it, and only for that one post.

There is no setting that quietly shares your position. Precise is selected by default, but before a precise post goes up you are shown the exact spot on a map and asked to confirm it, with the option to share just the area instead. Your exact location goes nowhere until you confirm.

iOS has its own permission on top of this. Present asks to use your location only while you are using the app. If you have given Present approximate location at the system level, it asks for precise access when you open the camera, because the position is captured at the shutter and a request made later would be too late. That access lasts for the current session only. If you decline, the Precise option is greyed out and cannot be chosen, so a post can never be labelled precise with a reading that is not.

You choose, every time

When you capture something, three options appear under it: Approximate, Precise, and No location. Precise is selected by default. You can change it before you post, and the choice applies to that post only.

Approximate

Present names the town, city, suburb or local area you are in, such as "Port Macquarie, NSW" or "Newtownards, Northern Ireland". That name is what gets saved with the photo, along with the map position of that area's centre. Nothing about where within it you were is kept.

The name comes from Apple, which turns a position into the place it falls in. It is generally less specific than a street name, and never as specific as a house number.

On any map in the app, an approximate post is placed at the centre of its area. That centre is the only position Present holds for it, so there is nothing more exact for a map to reveal, however far in you zoom.

Precise

Present saves the exact position from your phone at the moment you pressed the shutter, along with the street it was taken on, which Apple provides. The app asks your phone for the most accurate fix it can give.

The record names that street. On a map the photo sits at the saved coordinates themselves, which can place it more exactly than the street name alone would.

Present then checks that the reading holds together. In the seconds around the shutter your phone reports more than a single position, and Present compares those signals with each other and with what is known about that place. We don't publish the checks themselves or how they work.

The result is shown on the photo's public page as one of three things.

• Verified, with a distance, such as "within 8 metres". The reading was precise and everything about it agreed.
• Approximate. The reading was not precise enough to stand as an exact position, so the photo shows its area instead.
• Location unverified. Something did not add up. The photo is still posted and still verified as taken live at that time, but no position is shown. You are told, and you can take another.

A precise location is published to everyone who can see the photo. If the photo has a public link, the position appears on its public page too. This is for the times you want to be believed, such as reporting from a place. Choose it when exactly where you were is part of the point.

What the verified mark means for a location

It means the photo was taken live by an unmodified copy of Present on a genuine iPhone, at a time set by our server, and that the position your phone reported was precise and consistent with everything else Present could compare it against.

It does not mean Present watched you take it. A phone can be made to report a false position. Present looks for the signs of that and withholds the mark when it finds them, but no app can catch every case, and we will not pretend otherwise. The mark is a strong reason to believe a location, not a guarantee of it.

No location

Nothing about where you were is saved or sent. The photo is still verified as taken live at that time.

When the location is recorded

Your location is taken when you press the shutter, not when you post. If you take a photo and then move before posting, the photo keeps the place it was taken.

Maps

The map on a profile shows where that person's posts were captured. It is visible only to that person and the people they are connected to.

The main map shows posts from you and your connections. Precise posts are shown at their exact position at any zoom. Approximate posts are shown at the centre of the area they were taken in.

Photos you appear in

A post someone else captures carries their location choice, not yours. A tag in that photo does not appear on your profile until you accept it, so nothing about where you were is published through someone else's photo without your say.

What Present does not do

• It does not use your location unless you press the shutter, and never when the camera is closed.
• It does not save your exact position for an approximate post. The centre of the area is all it ever holds.
• It does not read your photo library. There is no way to bring a post in from anywhere else.
• It does not change a location after the fact. What was saved when you posted is what the record shows.

A note on accuracy. The position comes from your phone's own location services. For a precise post, Present checks that reading for consistency and shows how precise it was. It verifies that a photo was taken live, at that time, by the camera in the app, and it reports what it could and could not confirm about where. It does not claim to know more about where you were than the evidence supports.