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Credit to Author: Louise Matsakis| Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2019 11:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Spend enough time <\/span>on the social media app TikTok<\/a>, and you\u2019re bound to see a Life360 meme. That\u2019s because Life360<\/a>, a location-sharing app aimed at families, is apparently ruining the lives of teenagers all across the United States. The service allows parents to track their kids\u2019 whereabouts in real time, among other features. As one girl with long, blond hair jokes in a popular TikTok clip, it\u2019s set her summer vacation on fire. Some of the videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of likes\u2014in other words, they\u2019re relatable.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because for many adolescents, adult supervision has turned into adult surveillance. Schools are adopting facial recognition technology<\/a> to monitor campuses. Parents can now remotely check their child\u2019s browsing histories and social media accounts, watch their movements via motion-sensing cameras, and track everywhere they go with location-sharing apps. In a Pew Research Center study<\/a> last year, 58 percent of US parents said they sometimes or often look at their teenager\u2019s messages, call logs, and the websites they visit. In a separate study<\/a> from 2016, 16 percent said they used location-sharing apps.<\/p>\n Life360 is one of the many digital monitoring tools now used by millions of parents in the United States. The app functions like an enhanced version of Apple\u2019s \u201cFind My<\/a>\u201d feature that lets you share your location with friends or family\u2014or what the company calls \u201cyour Circle.\u201d In addition to location sharing, Life360 lets family members see how fast people in their circle are driving, how much battery their cell phones have, and more. The service is free to download and use, although you can pay for additional features. According to the San Francisco-based company, Life360 had over 18 million monthly active users at the end of 2018.<\/p>\n Apps like Life360 can give kids and parents a sense of security, but they also raise questions about privacy and children\u2019s autonomy. And on TikTok, teenagers are discussing and debating them. Videos with the hashtag #Life360<\/a> have been viewed there over 13 million times. In some of the most popular clips, teens share with each other strategies for circumventing the app, usually by turning off various phone settings. Other videos are less practical and serve more as a form of venting. In one recording with more than 30,000 likes, a photo of Life360\u2019s founder and CEO Chris Hulls appears onscreen, while a rap song with the lyrics \u201cSnitch, snitch, the snitch, the snitch, snitch\u201d plays.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s completely unfair and detrimental to teenagers if their parents use this app on them regularly,\u201d said a 16-year-old boy from Texas who, like all the young people in this story, was contacted via social media and requested anonymity to talk freely about his family. \u201cI spend most of my time texting my parents about what\u2019s going on rather than spending time with my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Other teens are more understanding of their parents\u2019 use of the app but think Life360 is too invasive. \u201cIf I am going a little over the speed limit on the freeway just to keep up with traffic, my parents freak out,\u201d said a 16-year-old girl from California. \u201cI understand where my parents are coming from, but I believe that the app has too many features that make it over the top.\u201d<\/p>\n Life360 COO David Rice argues that these teenagers represent a vocal minority. \u201cTeens who take issue with Life360 are often the loudest, but in reality a vast majority of teens are OK with location sharing,\u201d he said in an email. The practice has \u201cbecome the new norm for today's digitally native families.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that not every young person resents constantly sharing their whereabouts with their parents. \u201cUsing the app makes me feel kind of safe, honestly,\u201d said a 21-year-old woman from California. \u201cAnd, like, me and my younger brother don\u2019t lie to our parents, so if they call after checking the app, we always say where we are, but it\u2019s just there for them to have it just in case we don\u2019t call and check in.\u201d<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t one correct way to parent, and tools like Life360 can make the often difficult process of raising a teenager easier. Adults today are often already more active<\/a> in managing their kids\u2019 lives, even while researchers have found that adolescents are having less sex<\/a>, attending fewer parties<\/a>, and abstaining in greater numbers from drugs<\/a> and alcohol<\/a> than previous generations.<\/p>\n But location-sharing apps also provoke thorny questions about how much privacy children and young adults are entitled to. \u201cOur legal system gives strong deference to parental freedoms and parental rights,\u201d said Stacy Steinberg, a professor at the University of Florida Law School and the director of its Center on Children and Families. (There are<\/em> at least some regulations to protect children\u2019s personal information from corporations, like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, and Life360\u2019s policies state that it doesn't use data from kids under 13 for marketing or advertising.)<\/p>\n Even if it's totally legal for a parent to track their children, some experts have urged parents<\/a> to consider how they go about it and the impact it could have on their teen's trust or their ability to practice independence. \u201c[My parents] sometimes don\u2019t let me do the simplest things, such as stopping to get ice cream on my own or stopping by friends\u2019 houses to stay hello,\u201d said an 18-year-old girl from Florida. \u201cBefore Life360, I\u2019d do harmless things like these without letting my parents know, but now they have access to my every step.\u201d Life360 can also add unnecessary stress; one teen asked WIRED to end an interview early because just talking about the app caused them anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cLocation sharing has become the new norm for today's digitally native families.\u201d<\/p>\n David Rice, Life 360<\/p>\n Sarita Yardi Schoenebeck, a professor at the University of Michigan and the director of its Living Online Lab, is less concerned with how parents use Life360 than with the app\u2019s business model. Life360 generates income mainly through premium subscriptions<\/a>, which come with additional safety features like roadside assistance for drivers. But almost a quarter of the company\u2019s revenue comes not from users directly but through the use of their data for things like advertising or partnerships with other companies. It\u2019s a \u201cfreemium\u201d model that\u2019s common among online services but one that has come under more scrutiny in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe model is driven by economics and capitalism and less so by families\u2019 well-being,\u201d Schoenebeck said. \u201cIt seems like time and time again, [these apps] are designed to surveil people without incorporating any kind, or very little, research on child development.\u201d<\/p>\n Other researchers have sounded the alarm<\/a> about how location-sharing apps can be abused to spy on or stalk victims. Rice said that Life360 \u201ctakes these issues very seriously\u201d and has \u201cbuilt in features for our members to easily turn location tracking off.\u201d When asked if Life360 consulted with experts on children\u2019s privacy or domestic abuse for its app, COO Rice said the company has worked with a family psychologist and a former Secret Service agent.<\/p>\n \u201cLife360 was founded with the mission to help families better coordinate and stay protected,\u201d Rice said. \u201cWe believe in open communication and complete transparency, which is why Life360 ensures that all members see the same information in real time. We encourage families to use the app together.\u201d He stressed that Life360 stores location information for only 30 days before it\u2019s deleted.<\/p>\n The company may say its mission is to help families, but it\u2019s also a business\u2014one that is trying to grow. Life360 quietly went public<\/a> on the Australian Securities Exchange in May. Its prospectus<\/a> claims that the company has \u201camassed one of the world\u2019s largest digital audiences of security-conscious family units" and has "deep insights into these Users in a way that was not possible before the smartphone. We know where our Users live, work, shop, drive and more.\u201d<\/p>\n And the company is using that data to, well, sell car insurance. According to the company\u2019s privacy policy<\/a>, it shares your \u201cpersonal information, driving event data, and other information,\u201d with the risk-assessment firm Arity, which uses that information to calculate insurance pricing and \u201cdevelop risk-predictive models for its own analytics purposes.\u201d Arity is a subsidiary of the insurance giant Allstate, which is also an investor<\/a> in Life360. In its prospectus earlier this year, Life360 said it hopes to soon offer US customers Allstate insurance plans that are customized based on how they drive. And why stop at cars? The company woos potential investors with grand plans of one day disrupting areas like general insurance, home security, elder care, and more. When Life360 detects you\u2019ve moved, for instance, it could offer to sell you new surveillance cameras.<\/p>\n Most parents probably don\u2019t envision any of this when they download the app; they\u2019re just looking for a way to keep an eye on their children. Or, sometimes, teens are looking for a way to keep an eye on their parents. One 17-year-old in Iowa claims she installed the app on her mother\u2019s phone without her knowledge so that she could sneak out and ensure she returned home before her mom. \u201cI remembered seeing a Life360 ad, so when we was gathered around taking pictures at a birthday party, I asked to see the pics and just downloaded it,\u201d she said. \u201cHid the app into a bunch of files and was good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n