Friends Map & Circles
See the friends who chose to share. Nobody else.
The Friends Map is off until you turn it on. You pick who sees you, you can pause with one tap, and your location expires on its own.
What it does today
Share with the people you pick
All friends, close friends, a list you choose, or everyone except a few. Ghost Mode hides you from everyone at once.
Circles
Turn a group chat into a Circle for family or housemates: check in, see who is sharing, and send an SOS to the Circle. A Circle's name comes from the group chat itself, not from our servers.
Place alerts, with consent
A friend can ask to know when you arrive at or leave a place. Nothing happens unless you accept, and you can see and switch off every alert about you.
Trips and visits on your iPhone
If you turn them on, drive summaries and places you visited are kept on your iPhone only, never uploaded.
The map icon is on the Chats screen. Touch and hold it for Circles, Check in, Pause sharing and SOS.
Privacy you can check
- End-to-end encrypted on current versionsYour position is sealed for each friend on your phone and signed, so our servers only pass on a locked copy. If a friend is still on an older PIING, that one copy can be read by our servers until they update; the app tells you when that happens, and this fallback ends on 31 January 2027.
- Pause any timePause sharing from the Chats map button or the map. When you stop sharing, your live location is deleted from our servers straight away.
- It expiresA Friends Map update expires after 4 hours. Trips are kept for 90 days at most and are cleared when you stop sharing. Visits on your iPhone are kept for 30 days. An SOS location is deleted when the SOS ends, and always within 24 hours.
- No constant GPSSharing while PIING is closed is optional and uses Apple's low-power location service (significant change, visits and region monitoring), not continuous tracking.
16 and 17
For 16 and 17 year olds the Friends Map, Circles location and Nearby start off. Our servers refuse map updates from those accounts until the person turns sharing on themselves. SOS stays available.
Questions
Is this crash detection?
No. Apple doesn't offer crash detection to other apps. If your phone feels a hard jolt while you are driving, PIING may ask "Are you OK?" and offer to open SOS. PIING never calls emergency services for you: call 999 or 112 yourself if you need them.
Can someone track me without me knowing?
No. Only friends you chose can see you, place alerts need your yes, and you can see and remove every alert about you. Report an alert and it is switched off at once.
Does it work in a browser?
The browser shows the friends sharing with you. A browser map uses free OpenStreetMap tiles and appears once it has been switched on for the web.
Is it free?
Yes. The Friends Map, Circles, check-ins and SOS are free, with no ads.