Sources: Life360, a family safety app with 33M users, has sold users' precise location since 2016 and is one of the location data broker industry's top sources
family safety app Life360. Life360 sells location data from its 33 million users to about a dozen data brokers, including X-Mode, Safegraph, and Cuebiq. https://themarkup.org/... Wolfie Christl / @wolfiechristl : “Life360, a popular family safety app used by 33 million people worldwide, has been marketed as a great way for parents to track their children's movements” Also, it sells “data on kids' and families' whereabouts to approximately a dozen data brokers”: https://themarkup.org/... Karl Bode / @karlbode : this whole story is a greatest hits of bullshit privacy abusing justifications, including the ever-present claim that none of this is a big deal because the data has been “anonymized” (which is a meaningless, gibberish term): https://themarkup.org/... John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton : PARENTS using @Life360: You have no idea who else may be tracking your family. Why? Company is selling location data. Sometimes within 20 minutes. Pic: how to disable. More via @alfredwkng & @jonkeegan: https://themarkup.org/... https://twitter.com/... Jathan Sadowski / @jathansadowski : Here's the CEO of Life360 not denying it shares location data with insurers (just not in ways that affect rates). And here's the Chairman saying, when Life360 went public, their “ultimate goal” is to move into insurance. I knew I could smell the insurtech angle on this story. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Moira Weigel / @moiragweigel : I felt ill reading about this sloppy, venture-propped-up app selling the probably personally identifiable location data of children not only to advertisers but to security contractors funded by folks like Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud and Peter Thiel. https://themarkup.org/... Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : Your periodic reminder that there are virtually no U.S. federal limits on companies that want to package and sell data about where we go. https://themarkup.org/... Jonah Sachs / @sachsjonah : @jordannovet @reneritchie And Tile exes were crying that Find My would destroy their business. Here's a fantastic reason to use AirTags. Alison Croggon / @alisoncroggon : “Family safety” sounding even creepier https://twitter.com/... @tldtoday : that's a giant oof https://twitter.com/... Daniel Bader / @journeydan : I don't have plans for dinner a year from now, either https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kate Ward / @kateward : Me, to every mom who told me to get this. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Carl Hancock / @carlhancock : “family safety app” 🤣👍 https://twitter.com/... Brad McCarty / @bradmccarty : The parent company is buying Tile. So expect that data to be sold too. I get that Apple is far from perfect. But when people ask me why I am so embedded into that ecosystem, privacy is my number one reason. https://twitter.com/... Parker Ortolani / @parkerortolani : And y'all get so mad about AirTags being a problem... sheesh... https://twitter.com/... Jeff Gothelf / @jboogie : We've been using this service for years. I suppose I should've known this was happening. Absolutely disappointing. https://twitter.com/... @omartosca : Good Tile alternatives anyone? Not from Apple, please. https://twitter.com/... Harrison Weber / @harrisonweber : Hate to say I told you so, but https://gizmodo.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jordan Novet / @jordannovet : great this is the company that's buying Tile https://twitter.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor : More great work from @themarkup — exposing the sleazy doings of yet another data monger that treats people's privacy like a commodity it owns and can sell. https://twitter.com/... @hypervisible : Blockbuster stuff: “...the app is selling data on kids' and families' whereabouts to approximately a dozen data brokers who have sold data to virtually anyone who wants to buy it.” https://themarkup.org/... Amie Stepanovich / @astepanovich : Something about good intentions and the road to hell... https://twitter.com/... John Bergmayer / @bergmayer : this shady company just bought Tile. physical location trackers. Not great! https://twitter.com/... John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton : Think this won't affect you? Well, @Life360 is set to acquire Tile aka @TheTileApp Company has said ‘no plans to sell Tile data.’ But I don't see anything preventing them from changing their minds later. https://twitter.com/... Justin Sherman / @jshermcyber : Another major investigation by @jonkeegan and @alfredwkng on data brokerage — “The Markup has learned, however, that the app is selling data on kids' and families' whereabouts to approximately a dozen data brokers who have sold data to virtually anyone who wants to buy it.” https://twitter.com/... @alfredwkng : New: Millions of families use Life360 to keep track of their loved ones. About a dozen location data brokers also use Life360, with former employees from the company, X-Mode and Cuebiq calling it one of the largest sources of data in the industry https://themarkup.org/... Julia Angwin / @juliaangwin : Location data is highly traceable to individuals, and former Life360 employees told us that the company doesn't take industry-standard steps to make sure that information can't be traced back to users. The CEO told us that they sell the data both hashed and unhashed. https://twitter.com/... Julia Angwin / @juliaangwin : Life360 CEO and founder Chris Hulls told us that selling data allows them to keep the app free. Last year the company reported $16 million of revenue from data sales. https://twitter.com/... @themarkup : “Families probably would not like the slogan, ‘You can watch where your kids are, and so can anyone who buys this information,’ ” @jshermcyber told us. https://themarkup.org/... Julia Angwin / @juliaangwin : Life360 sells to some data brokers who service the U.S. government — although the company said last year it implemented a new policy asking data partners to not sell to the government. However, the CEO said it is a challenge to monitor partners activities for compliance. https://twitter.com/... Julia Angwin / @juliaangwin : The latest in our ongoing investigation of the location data broker industry: Life360, a popular app used by families to keep track of their kids, is selling location data about its users to about a dozen data brokers. @jonkeegan & @alfredwkng report: https://themarkup.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Life360's data sales sit within a location-data market built around collectors, aggregators, and marketplaces, rather than a standalone use of family-safety data. The reported broker list makes the app a direct upstream supplier to that system.
The later shift from precise-location sales to aggregate data for two clients shows how sharply this reporting narrowed Life360's data-business model.
First-order effects
- Life360 users' precise movements entered the broker ecosystem through roughly a dozen buyers, while Life360 derived reported revenue from data sales.
- X-Mode, SafeGraph, and Cuebiq gained a recurring source of precise location data from an app marketed to families.
Second-order effects
- Life360's stated difficulty monitoring downstream partners highlights the compliance burden for brokers whose data may reach government-serving customers.
- SafeGraph and other location-data buyers face greater scrutiny over sensitive-place and family-location datasets, a pressure reflected in SafeGraph's later restriction on family-planning-center visitor data.
Third-order effects
- Location-data markets are being pushed to distinguish aggregate analytics from transferable precise-location feeds, with the practical limits of hashing and partner controls becoming central.
- If app publishers remain accountable for downstream resale, data-broker supply chains will increasingly be governed at the collection app rather than only at the final buyer.
The trend: Consumer apps are becoming a focal point for constraining the downstream resale of precise location data through opaque broker networks.