A lawsuit seeking class-action status has been filed against Life360, a family tracking app, for allegedly selling users’ location data without consent. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a minor in Florida and his family, who claimed that they would have never used Life360 if they knew it would sell their location data.
The lawsuit cites a report by The Markup in December 2021 that revealed that the app was selling precise location data of millions of users to about one dozen location data brokers.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
A month after The Markup’s report, Life 360 announced it would only sell precise location data to Allstate company and Arity, and that it would sell aggregated data to Placer.AI.
The lawsuit noted that the data Life360 was selling could be used to identify users and their visits to sensitive venues “including places of religious worship, places that may be used to infer an LGBTQ+ identification, domestic abuse shelters, medical facilities, and welfare and homeless shelters.”
It added that the sale of precise location data “poses an unwarranted intrusion into the most private areas of consumers’ lives” that could subject them to “stigma, discrimination, physical violence, emotional distress, and other harms.”
The plaintiffs want a jury trial and are seeking “compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages.”
Last week, the judge approved a request to delay proceedings until a mutually agreed upon mediation session to be held on August 21. The parties involved have until August 25 to report to the court about the outcome of the mediation session.
“While we don’t comment on pending litigation, Life360 remains committed to transparency and choice. We disclose our data practices and give members meaningful choices about how their data is used, processed, and shared, including the ability to opt out of even aggregated data sales,” a spokesperson for Life360 told The Markup.
