#FactCheck - Viral Video Misleadingly Tied to Recent Taiwan Earthquake

Introduction

Snapchat's Snap Map redefined location sharing with an ultra-personalised feature that allows users to track where they and their friends are, discover hotspots, and even explore events worldwide. In November 2024, Snapchat introduced a new addition to its Family Center, aiming to bolster teen safety. This update enables parents to request and share live locations with their teens, set alerts for specific locations, and monitor who their child shares their location with.

While designed with keeping safety in mind, such tracking tools raise significant privacy concerns. Misusing these features could expose teens to potential harm, amplifying the debate around safeguarding children’s online privacy. This blog delves into the privacy and safety challenges Snap Map poses under existing data protection laws, highlighting critical gaps and potential risks.

Understanding Snapmap: How It Works and Why It’s Controversial

Snap Map, built on technology from Snap's acquisition of social mapping startup Zenly, revolutionises real-time location sharing by letting users track friends, send messages, and explore the world through an interactive map. With over 350 million active users by Q4 2023, and India leading with 202.51 million Snapchat users, Snap Map has become a global phenomenon.

This opt-in feature allows users to customise their location-sharing settings, offering modes like "Ghost Mode" for privacy, sharing with all friends, or selectively with specific contacts. However, location updates occur only when the app is in use, adding a layer of complexity to privacy management.

While empowering users to connect and share, Snap Map’s location-sharing capabilities raise serious concerns. Unintentional sharing or misuse of this tool could expose users—especially teens—to risks like stalking or predatory behaviour. As Snap Map becomes increasingly popular, ensuring its safe use and addressing its potential for harm remains a critical challenge for users and regulators.

The Policy Vacuum: Protecting Children’s Data Privacy

Given the potential misuse of location-sharing features, evaluating the existing regulatory frameworks for protecting children's geolocation privacy is important. Geolocation features remain under-regulated in many jurisdictions, creating opportunities for misuse, such as stalking or unauthorised surveillance. Presently, multiple international and national jurisdictions are in the process of creating and implementing privacy laws. The most notable examples are the COPPA in the US, GDPR in the EU and the DPDP Act which have made considerable progress in privacy for children and their online safety. COPPA and GDPR prioritise children’s online safety through strict data protections, consent requirements, and limits on profiling. India’s DPDP Act, 2023, prohibits behavioral tracking and targeted ads for children, enhancing privacy. However, it lacks safeguards against geolocation tracking, leaving a critical gap in protecting children from risks posed by location-based features.

Balancing Innovation and Privacy: The Role of Social Media Platforms

Privacy is an essential element that needs to be safeguarded and this is specifically important for children as they are vulnerable to harm they cannot always foresee. Social media companies must uphold their responsibility to create platforms that do not become a breeding ground for offences against children. Some of the challenges that platforms face in implementing a safe online environment are robust parental control and consent mechanisms to ensure parents are informed about their children’s online presence and options to opt out of services that they feel are not safe for their children. Platforms need to maintain a level of privacy that allows users to know what data is collected by the platform, sharing and retention data policies. 

Policy Recommendations: Addressing the Gaps

Some of the recommendations for addressing the gaps in the safety of minors are as follows:

• Enhancing privacy and safety for minors by taking measures such as mandatory geolocation restrictions for underage users.
• Integrating clear consent guidelines for data protection for users. 
• Collaboration between stakeholders such as government, social media platforms, and civil society is necessary to create awareness about location-sharing risks among parents and children. 

Conclusion

Safeguarding privacy, especially of children, with the introduction of real-time geolocation tools like Snap Map, is critical. While these features offer safety benefits, they also present the danger of misuse, potentially harming vulnerable teens. Policymakers must urgently update data protection laws and incorporate child-specific safeguards, particularly around geolocation tracking. Strengthening regulations and enhancing parental controls are essential to protect young users. However, this must be done without stifling technological innovation. A balanced approach is needed, where safety is prioritised, but innovation can still thrive. Through collaboration between governments, social media platforms, and civil society, we can create a digital environment that ensures safety and progress.

References

• https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/snapchat-family-center-real-time-location-sharing-travel-notifications-9669270/
• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/snapchat-unveils-location-sharing-features-to-safeguard-teen-users/articleshow/115297065.cms?from=mdr
• https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/snapchat-adds-more-location-safety-features-for-teens/article68871301.ece 
• https://www.moneycontrol.com/technology/snapchat-expands-parental-control-with-location-tracking-to-make-it-easier-for-parents-to-track-their-kids-article-12868336.html ‍
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/545967/snapchat-app-dau/

Introduction

Established in the US, one of the world’s largest cab networks came into existence in 2010 and, since its inception, has expanded all over the globe with operations in 10,000 cities across 71 countries. It made a remarkable start in India in 2017 and, since then, has seen a rise in the customers and drivers for the company. India is among the largest markets for Uber, with 600,000 monthly drivers and 8.5 million monthly riders.

GeM

Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a one-stop portal to facilitate online procurement of common-use Goods & Services required by various Government Departments / Organizations / PSUs. GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverses e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate government users achieve the best value for their money. Government e-Marketplace owes its genesis to the recommendations of two Groups of Secretaries to the Prime Minister in January 2016. They recommended setting up a dedicated e-market for different goods & services procured or sold by Government/PSUs besides reforming DGS&D. Subsequently, the Finance Minister, in his Budget speech for FY 2016-17, announced setting up of a technology-driven platform to facilitate procurement of goods and services by various Ministries and agencies of the Government. The portal was launched on 9th August 2016 by the Commerce & Industry Minister.

Uber-GeM collaboration

The cab network giant has registered on the portal of the Government E-marketplace and has declared that it will offer its services to Government officials from Ministries and PSUs. The project is currently in its pilot phase and shall be executed systematically to cover all the ministries and PSUs in the nation. The officials can book cabs at a fixed price with no cancellation or surge fees on the rides. The authorised officials will be able to book a cab from the portal and select from the list of drivers available. It will be a cashless/cardless ride for the officials; additional vehicle categories for government riders have been added, namely, GeM Yatraa Hatch and GeM Yatraa Sedan, and there will be hourly rentals for multiple-stops, allowing the government officials to enjoy the flexible and easily accessible network of cabs in major cities.

Advantages

Such collaboration between Government institutions and corporates will go a long way to secure a stable equilibrium in the market. Uber, a US-based company, enjoys a vast user base in India and has created new job avenues. The advantages of the collaboration between GeM and Uber are as follows-

Easy accessibility

This will undoubtedly provide ease in accessibility in terms of being in a new place, and language barriers will no longer exist with such options for Government officials.

Increased jobs for drivers

With more cabs being engaged with ministries and PSUs, it is pertinent that the requirement for drivers will grow, thus increasing the employability rate in India and allowing the user to have an uninterrupted experience.

Ease of travel and commuting

This move will provide flexibility, thus leading to more ease in travel in cases of emergencies or places inaccessible by trains or other modes of transport.

Rise in travel and tourism

Coupled with the other factors, the opportunities for the users to visit different places will be an added advantage which will help boost the tourism industry, thus creating a balance in the market.

Sustainable Government corporate relationship

Such collaborations between the government and corporates will be substantial, signifying the ease of doing business in India. They will also act as a beacon of example for compliance with opportunities for the other companies and stakeholders.

Opportunities for collaboration with ingenious start-ups

With such major corporate joining hands with the government, the indigenous start-ups will have various opportunities to engage with companies and recreate similar businesses rooted in India, thus transforming the economy.

Conclusion

Transportation and communication play a vital role in our lives, thus, such collaboration will go a long way in creating a better and more uniform user experience in the country. This also goes a long way to showcase that the Governmental platforms also offer services of a global standard. Such portals exist in South Korea, Singapore, the US and Europe. The network of cabs can only be sustained using the locals as drivers, hence these collaborations are win-win for all as the market dynamics are improving, employability will increase, and improved user experience will be seen.

Executive Summary:

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Social media has been overwhelmed by a viral post that claims Indian Railways is beginning to install solar panels directly on railway tracks all over the country for renewable energy purposes. The claim also purports that India will become the world's first country to undertake such a green effort in railway systems. Our research involved extensive reverse image searching, keyword analysis, government website searches, and global media verification. We found the claim to be completely false. The viral photos and information are all incorrectly credited to India. The images are actually from a pilot project by a Swiss start-up called Sun-Ways.

Claim:

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According to a viral post on social media, Indian Railways has started an all-India initiative to install solar panels directly on railway tracks to generate renewable energy, limit power expenses, and make global history in environmentally sustainable rail operations.

Fact check:

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We did a reverse image search of the viral image and were soon directed to international media and technology blogs referencing a project named Sun-Ways, based in Switzerland. The images circulated on Indian social media were the exact ones from the Sun-Ways pilot project, whereby a removable system of solar panels is being installed between railway tracks in Switzerland to evaluate the possibility of generating energy from rail infrastructure.

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We also thoroughly searched all the official Indian Railways websites, the Ministry of Railways news article, and credible Indian media. At no point did we locate anything mentioning Indian Railways engaging or planning something similar by installing solar panels on railway tracks themselves.

Indian Railways has been engaged in green energy initiatives beyond just solar panel installation on program rooftops, and also on railway land alongside tracks and on train coach roofs. However, Indian Railways have never installed solar panels on railway tracks in India. Meanwhile, we found a report of solar panel installations on the train launched on 14th July 2025, first solar-powered DEMU (diesel electrical multiple unit) train from the Safdarjung railway station in Delhi. The train will run from Sarai Rohilla in Delhi to Farukh Nagar in Haryana. A total of 16 solar panels, each producing 300 Wp, are fitted in six coaches. 

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We also found multiple links to support our claim from various media links: Euro News, World Economy Forum, Institute of Mechanical Engineering, and  NDTV.   

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Conclusion:

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After extensive research conducted through several phases including examining facts and some technical facts, we can conclude that the claim that Indian Railways has installed solar panels on railway tracks is false. The concept and images originate from Sun-Ways, a Swiss company that was testing this concept in Switzerland, not India. 

Indian Railways continues to use renewable energy in a number of forms but has not put any solar panels on railway tracks. We want to highlight how important it is to fact-check viral content and other unverified content.

• Claim: India’s solar track project will help Indian Railways run entirely on renewable energy.‍
• Claimed On: Social Media‍
• Fact Check: False and Misleading

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