"Places"

There's a new update on the Facebook for iPhone app - "Places".

Basically, as part of the social networking site you're familiar with, you can now post an "update" of where you are located on the globe. You "check in" at a place you've arrived at, and show the world just where you are.

There's already been concerns about the safety and security of the system - there are cases of kidnapping and murder happening across the internet, but this just seems to make a lot of it easier.

That's not my primary concern, anyway.
Why do we need people to know where we are? It seems a bit crazy and self-absorbed to me. I don't want to know where other people are, just as much as I don't want to let people know where I am. I guess it's handy if you're travelling and want to let parents or relatives that you're alive and to know where to contact you, but when you're just doing it while walking around your own city?

I don't know, it just seems a little bit of an intrusion, and a little pointless.
I don't like the idea of a 1984 style watch on everybody - I'm averse to measures such as an internet filter and Patriot Act style legislation, so this is like a socially acceptable extension of those things in my eyes.