Life360 represents the most privacy-invasive platform in this category. Continuous location tracking, historical movement archives, driving behavior surveillance, and a documented history of selling location data to brokers combine to create severe privacy concerns. This is particularly troubling given the app is often used to track minors who cannot meaningfully consent.
| Data Type | Collected | Shared | Sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Precise Location | Continuous GPS | Family, Partners | Data brokers (historical) |
| Location History | Weeks/months | Premium features | Aggregated analytics |
| Driving Behavior | Speed, braking, phone use | Family, Insurers | Insurance partners |
| Movement Patterns | Inferred locations | Analytics | Aggregate insights |
| Crash Detection | Accelerometer data | Emergency services | No |
Life360 has faced extensive scrutiny for selling precise location data to data brokers including X-Mode and Safegraph. While the company claims to have ended some practices, the policy language still permits broad location data uses and the damage from years of sales cannot be undone.
GPS tracking runs continuously, creating detailed movement profiles. Every trip to school, friend's house, or anywhere else is logged. For children, this means comprehensive movement records accumulated over their entire adolescence.
Premium features include weeks or months of location history. Parents can review where children have been, how long they stayed, and what routes they took—creating permanent records of childhood movement patterns.
Driving behavior data may be shared with insurance partners. Teen driving patterns captured by Life360 could affect insurance rates, with surveillance during learner years creating permanent records that follow young adults.
Beyond explicit tracking, Life360 infers meaning from location patterns—identifying schools, workplaces, frequent locations, and behavioral patterns. This derived intelligence goes beyond raw GPS data.
Crash detection and emergency SOS provide genuine safety value, sharing location only when emergencies are detected.