In WhatsApp, you can send everything: messages, voice clips, photos, videos, contacts, documents and your location, either at a specific time or in real time. When sending the position, you can choose between your current point or any location on the map, and depending on what you choose, it displays differently in chat.
In other words, by paying attention to a small detail, you will know if someone sent you the current location as is or used the WhatsApp search engine. In practice, it will help you detect when they send you a fake location, at least in some cases.
How to know if they send you current location or not
The trick to knowing if you have been sent a “fake” location is very simple, because you just have to be careful. When someone sends you the current location, the map preview in chat has no name or description. If a name or description is included below the card
When submitting a location other than the “current” location, the location name and description are displayed
This simple trick has been available for a long time, although in the past WhatsApp differentiated itself even more, including different colored icons on the map. Today we still have the name track, which is still very easy to see.
The idea is this: if the name is included below the map, the person has submitted something other than “current location”. It could be, yes, that he chose among the nearby places at a time when the GPS does not locate itself correctly and one of the suggestions seems more reliable or relevant than the location detected by the mobile.
Why does this happen
If they choose a place on the map other than the current location button, the name of the place is displayed in the chat preview
The reason why this happens is simple. When it comes to sending a location on WhatsApp, you have three options. The first option, at the top, is real-time location, which updates where you are until it’s turned off. To send a “static” location, you have two options: Send my current location or choose places on the map.
The current position corresponds to the position of the mobile (it will be the one indicated by the blue point on Google Maps, for example), but it is also possible to choose between nearby places or to use the best researcher. The search engine does not work very well, but you can move the map to another area and then search to suggest a place on the other side of the world, if you wish.
It’s not a foolproof method.
This trick will only work if the other person doesn’t trick the phone (and WhatsApp) with a fake location with apps like Fake GPS.
As we mentioned earlier, when someone presses Send my current location on WhatsApp, no text will be included below the map preview. This option sends the position of the mobile, but the problem is that it is possible to falsify the location detected by the mobile, in which case it would be false, but would not include the text.
The trick will still be useful to you in some cases. For example, if they text you a location, you will know it was chosen on the map, for whatever reason. Without it, it is the current location, which will usually be that of the mobile, except for people who have bothered themselves enough to fake the location of the mobile with apps like Fake GPS.
