It sounds good in theory, although how effective Cloak is depends on how many social networks it can trace. It plans to add more in the future, but has ruled out Twitter because "the location data just isn't there. Most users have it turned off and even when it's on, it's quite vague."

As for Facebook, its "social" antithesis, there's apparently "good data" but "a lot of it" for the app to process.

The people behind Cloak also point out that a lot of "friends" on Facebook are old high school and childhood contacts, so their location probably isn't as relevant.

But a spokesperson told Time that, "We’re going to be thinking about how to include Facebook soon, as well as other networks, of course."

The app is free in the App Store, with no Android version available yet.

Words: Anna Brech, Photos: Cloak and Rex Features

The 'antisocial network' app that lets you avoid people