‘This popular location app has been selling your location data for years’

Life360 sells customer data to data merchants while the identity of users can be traced. That story is now revealed by two ex-employees. The app has 33 million users worldwide, but there are steps you can take to protect your privacy.

Life360 sells your location

Life360 makes it easy for family and friends to know each other’s location. In case of problems you can also send emergency notifications or you can view the location history of the other person. It all sounds very secure, but it isn’t when it comes to privacy. For years, Life360 has been selling location data with 33 million users worldwide, but in the worst possible way, ex-employees tell The Markup.

The app sells data to data traders, i.e. companies that aim to collect as complete a package of data about individuals as possible. That data is then sold to marketing companies. Life360 does hide the data that most clearly points to a person’s identity, but that’s about it. It is still easy to trace to which people all location data belongs, because data is not bundled.

The app does communicate openly that it sells location data to third parties, but now it is becoming clear in what way and scale that happens. Life360 is said to be one of the main suppliers of location data and in 2020 the sale of that data has brought in 14.2 million euros.

The introduction video of the app in the Play Store

‘Part of the business model’

Life360 CEO Chris Hulls commented on the new. He insists that selling location data is “an important part of the company’s business model”. In addition, he states that his company does communicate clearly about the way it collects data and Life360 follows a clear policy on privacy, according to Hulls, which means that users cannot be identified.

This is how you prevent your location from being sold

Selling location data is an opt-out part of Life360. This means that you can prevent your location data from being sold in the settings. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security. Jyou can choose that Do Not Sell My Personal Information.

Life360 announced this year the acquisition of the Tile company, the popular bluetooth trackers. Although the company says it has no plans to also sell location data of Tile users. Are you a Life360 user? Are you going to remove the app now or use the above method to prevent the app from selling your data any longer? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this article.