By Maya Belle
In today’s world, it is becoming exceedingly easy to track your kids and keep tabs on them at all times. Location sharing apps can enable parents to track their children, and in theory, keep them safe from dangers near them.
One such app is Life360, a service which parents can use to see their kids’ locations while outside, and access other information about their phone and their activities on it. The app mainly let’s you share your location with people in your “Circle,” which is usually your friends and family. The app even has options to see your child’s battery levels, how fast they’re driving, etc. At the end of 2018, Life360 had 18 million active monthly users.
While location sharing apps may theoretically allow parents to keep their kids out of trouble, tracking your child’s location and keeping constant tabs on them at all times can actually be a massive hindrance, and drive a wedge in the relationship between parents and children. According to a Pew study as of 2016, 61% of parents have checked the browser history of their children, 48% have looked through their call records and texts, 48% know their child’s password for their email, 39% have used some form of parental controls to monitor their child’s activities, and 16% use location sharing apps.
According to Skylar Hawk, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, kids tend to fortify their boundaries around privacy and personal information when they feel it is being violated--which is exactly what apps like Life360 do. Recently, kids have begun to voice their opinions on location sharing apps. On Google Play, 76% of teens gave the app just one star. Hundreds of them wrote reviews describing how Life360 had driven a wedge between them and their parents, and how they felt untrusted by their parents and felt their privacy was violated.
Privacy may be one issue with Life360, but another prominent one is the company’s business model. Almost a quarter of its revenue comes from the usage of their users’ data for advertising and partnerships. Some researchers feel that the business model is more about economics and revenue than about families. Life360 has deep info into specific aspects of your life, such as where you shop, visit often, how reckless of a driver you are, etc. In fact, the company uses this information to... sell you car insurance. The company works with a risk assessment firm named Arity, a subsidiary of AllState, the insurance giant. Life360 plans to use this data, with the help of Arity, to sell you car insurance plans, and even plans to use information to sell things such as security cameras, if it knows you’ve moved. While LIfe360 is an app used in family settings, it is also a business trying to be successful.
To conclude, life happens. When your kid doesn’t answer the phone for a few minutes, your mind may drift to scenes of disaster. However, parents must trust their kids enough to allow them the privacy they need to keep a good relationship and develop healthily.
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