The distance is deliberately vague

Everyone on the bench is shown with a distance: "Firmin · ~800 m". It's the only thing you will ever know about someone.

It's rounded twice. First on your phone: your position is cut to three decimals, about 110 metres, before it even leaves. Then on display: to 100 m below a kilometre, to the kilometre below a hundred, to 100 km beyond that.

The vagueness is the product

A precise distance would let someone locate you. Three readings from three points and they have your address — that's trilateration, and it can be done on the back of an envelope.

But there's a more interesting reason. A vague distance is more evocative than an accurate one. "~800 m" is somewhere in the neighbourhood, maybe the next street. It stays a habitable mystery.

And when the bench turns out to be intercontinental, rounding to 100 km produces lines like "Josiane · ~9,400 km". Nobody needs more precision than that to understand the situation.