Is PingMee safe? How your location stays private

Other people on PingMee see an approximate distance, such as '2 miles away'. They never see your exact location, your coordinates, your address or a pin on a map showing where you are.

That distance is what makes PingMee useful: it tells someone you're close enough to meet, without telling them where you live, work or are standing right now. You choose how far you want to look for people, so you can keep it very local or widen it.

Some apps show people as dots on a map. That can be fun, but it also means anyone looking can work out roughly which street, or even which building, someone is in. PingMee deliberately doesn't do that for people. If you post a status from home, nobody looking at it can tell which home. They only know you're somewhere nearby.

On PingMee, you send someone a ping to say you'd like to connect. A private chat only opens if they ping you back. Until both of you have accepted, there's no private conversation between you, so nobody can message you privately just because they're nearby.

You don't have to answer every ping. If you'd rather not connect with someone, simply don't ping back. There's no awkward refusal to send, and nothing opens between you.

You also choose what you're open to, such as new friends or networking. You see people who are open to the same things, and they see you on the same terms. Setting that out from the start makes conversations easier for everyone.

If you'd like a break, or just want to look around without being seen, you can hide yourself from searches in Settings. While you're hidden, people nearby won't find you when they search, and you can switch it back on whenever you like.

You can also block or report anyone. Blocking someone stops them from finding you or contacting you. Reporting tells our team about behaviour that breaks the rules, so it can be looked into. If someone makes you uncomfortable, you don't need to explain yourself or reply: block them, report them if it's serious, and move on.

A status is a short post saying what you're up for, like 'Coffee near Angel this afternoon?'. Each status has a lifetime you choose, up to 24 hours, and then it disappears. If you change your mind sooner, you can delete it yourself at any time.

That keeps what you share about your plans short-lived. A status says what you fancy doing today, not a permanent record of where you go. If you'd rather not post a status at all, you don't have to: you can still see who's nearby and send pings.

A good habit is to name the area, not the exact spot, in a status. 'Coffee near Angel this afternoon?' tells people roughly where you'll be without saying which café or which street you live on. Once you've connected with someone and feel comfortable, you can agree the exact place together in your private chat.

Messages on PingMee are protected with TLS while they travel between your phone and our servers, and they are encrypted at rest when stored. Our privacy policy sets out exactly what we collect, why, and what you can ask us to delete.

If you ever want to leave, you can delete your account, and the privacy policy explains what happens to your data when you do.

Whatever app you use to meet people, a few small habits make a real difference. None of them take long, and together they protect the details that matter most.

Most of these come down to one idea: share a little at a time, as trust builds, rather than everything at once. People who are genuinely looking for friends or a good conversation won't mind waiting for the details.

Privacy in the app is one part of staying safe. The other part is how you meet people in real life. Meet somewhere public and busy the first time, tell a friend where you're going, make your own way there and back, and leave whenever you want. Our safety checklist for meeting someone from an app goes through it step by step.

Our area pages list good public places to meet in each part of London, such as Camden or Islington, and you can read more about meeting people nearby on PingMee.