Life360 sells location data en masse
The new owner Life360 appears to be selling accurate location data of users to almost everyone. The ‘family safety platform’ has millions of users and sells the location data of both adults and children to dozens of parties. So claims the website The Markup based on interviews with former Life360 employees and data brokers, who in turn pass the data on to many more third parties. Life360 is said to be one of the largest providers of location data worldwide and has little regard for privacy, according to the former employees.
Life360 is an app that allows you to monitor the location of family members, especially to see where children are. If you want a more privacy-friendly alternative, you can opt for Apple's Find My network and use the AirTag to find things. Apple does not collect or sell this location data to third parties.
Life360: ‘Many lives saved’
Life360 CEO Chris Hulls would not deny that his company sells large amounts of location data. According to him, this makes it possible to offer the basic functions of Life360 for free to the majority of users. They pay for their data. Hulls says making the data available has saved many lives and increased safety for motorists. He also notes that Life360 removes the most obvious personally traceable information. But according to the former employees, the company does little to make the data anonymous or less accurate.
Data brokers resell the data again
Life360 sells the data to Cuebiq, X-Mode, Safegraph and Arity, among others. A former X-Mode engineer said Life360's raw location data is one of the industry's most valuable resources due to its sheer volume and accuracy. Incidentally, Life360 does mention in the privacy conditions that data is shared with third parties, but as a user it is hardly possible to deduce on what scale this happens. If a partner such as X-Mode requests to be identified by name, the company will do so. Also, the location of children under 13 is not sold.
With the acquisition of Tile, Life360 will gain a lot of new users, who have paid money for a physical tracker and should therefore be treated a little more nicely when it comes to sharing private data. If new privacy terms for the Tile trackers are published soon, we recommend that you read them carefully.