It’s unhealthy sufficient that most providers promote your knowledge to others to make a fast buck, however when it’s a service billing itself as a security characteristic? Yikes. That’s precisely what Life360, the monitoring software program utilized by tens of millions worldwide, is doing.
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A brand new report from The Markup says the corporate is promoting exact location knowledge to a few dozen knowledge brokers. That quantity is probably going on the low finish, because it doesn’t account for all the businesses that these brokers service.
Sure, you learn that appropriately. That’s an app that you just use to trace your loved ones’s location, for his or her security. Promoting your loved ones’s exact location knowledge to knowledge brokers. Who then sells that location knowledge to actually anybody who’s prepared to pay for it.
They’re so profitable at it that former workers and among the knowledge brokers name Life360 “one of many largest sources of knowledge for the business.”
It’s not arduous to see why, with Life360’s app not simply sharing location knowledge, however additionally how briskly persons are driving, how a lot battery their cellphone has, and extra. It’s free to make use of for the core product, with some superior options requiring cost.
The uncooked location knowledge bought to knowledge brokers has ended up in governmental businesses, such because the CDC as a part of the COVID-19 monitoring efforts, and even to the Division of Defence. Whereas Life360 does have a coverage in opposition to gross sales to the federal government for regulation enforcement use, that coverage solely went into impact in 2020. Life360 has been promoting location knowledge to its companions since 2016.
The story will get muddier with Life360 including extra location monitoring corporations to its portfolio this yr. Monitoring {hardware} firm Jiobit was bought for $37 million earlier this yr, and Tile is being acquired for $205 million. Positive, Life360’s CEO says they don’t have any plans to promote the info from these gadgets presently, however plans change.
Should you’re a person of Life360 who doesn’t need their location knowledge bought, you’ll be able to opt-out. Head to Settings > Privateness & Safety > Do Not Promote My Private Info after which toggle the swap subsequent to Private Info Gross sales.