St. Ninians High School in Glasgow has issued a statement to parents about the use of GPS on mobile phones and how this technology can be used to geo-locate students.

The advice reads:

“Mobile phones with global positioning facilities have an application called “Layar” which uses the phone’s in built GPS and compass features to overlay local data. The phone will show local points of interest in the direction the phone user is facing. This application also has a layer called “Tweeps Around” which can show all other local Twitter users – if they have allowed active geotagging on their phones. “Tweeps Around” allows a user to see other phone users’ Twitter ID’s, the text of their last “tweet” and their profile pictures. A phone user can then click on any one of them and select “Take Me There” which automatically opens up a Google map to pinpoint precisely where they are and note the actual address of the building. If your son/daughter is using their mobile phone for Twitter then the advice is to ensure active geotagging is turned off. “

More information is available on the St. Ninians School web site.