066. Life360: Family Tracker or Digital Stalker?

In this episode we are teaming up with our favorite Cyber Security expert, James Walsh, for a crossover episode with Cyber Pulse where we discuss the pros and cons of family tracking apps like Life360. We talk about privacy issues, potential misuse by stalkers, effects on child development, the possible resulting trust issues with family and loved ones, and the effect on battery performance. Our goal is to give you the facts so you can decide if a family tracking app is right for you.

We cite a few articles during the chat, listed here in case you want to dive in:

Keegan, John (December 6, 2021). "The Popular Family Safety App Life360 Is Selling Precise Location Data on Its Tens of Millions of Users." The Markup.

"Alleged Stalking Victims Accuse Tile of Advertising Its Devices as Women Trackers." Gizmodo. August 16, 2023.

Karabus, Jude. "Stalking victims sue Tile, Amazon over trackers." www.theregister.com.

Arkansas law firm sues Tile creators after stalking issues with device. August 18, 2023

Child Development - Cambridge University Press publication "Self-Regulation and Autonomy: Social and Developmental Dimensions of Human Conduct."

Ohlheiser, Abby. "'Don't leave campus': Parents are now using tracking apps to watch their kids at college." The Washington Post.

Topics: Life360, Find my Friends, Snapchat, Instagram, privacy, GDPR, CCPA, hackers, cybersecurity, location, geotagging, metadata

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