Dec 07, 2021 10:55:00

It was discovered that 'Life360', which acquired the lost item tracker 'Tile', was selling the position data of tens of millions of users without permission.

It is revealed that the child watching application `` Lfe360'' that acquired the drop tracker giant `` Tile'' along with Apple's `

` AirTag '' is selling detailed location information data of tens of millions of users to data brokers became.

The Popular Family Safety App Life360 Is Selling Precise Location Data on Its Tens of Millions of Users – The Markup
https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-safety-app-life360-is-selling-precise-location-data-on-its-tens-of-millions-of- user user

Tile Buyer Life360 Selling Precise Location Data on Millions of Users --MacRumors

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/06/life360-selling-location-data-of-millions/

According to the news site The Markup, it was found that 'Life360', which has 33 million users, sold detailed location information of users to 12 data brokers.

Life360 was recognized by data brokers as 'one of the largest data sources in the industry', and it was useful because the amount and accuracy of the data provided was extremely high. A former employee of one of the brokers said, 'Without Life360 data, we couldn't run a marketing campaign.'

Life360 CEO Chris Hull said that 'there is no way to verify or deny accuracy' as to whether it is 'one of the largest data sources in the industry', but 'the majority of users are Life360' when it comes to data sales. I think it's an important part of our business model to make our services available for free. ' In fact, the privacy policy also states that the data is for sale.

Life360 has just acquired the lost item tracker maker 'Tile' in November 2021. Founded in 2012, Tile was known as a major player in the industry. However, after Apple entered the market with 'AirTag' in 2021, it was forced to compete fiercely and sold to 'Life360'.

Location-based services acquire 'Tile', a major drop tracker-GIGAZINE

Experts point out that this is a particularly big problem because Life360 is a 'watching service', a role that should protect the safety of users.

・ 2021/12/10 13:39 Addendum
The following statement was sent by Tile:

Tile does not sell or monetize personal information.
Life360 is committed to fully supporting and continuing Tile's policy.
Privacy and security are very important to Tile, and Tile's privacy policy will be maintained and will not change under the umbrella of Life360.