Life360. Just the name of that application strikes fear into the hearts of teenagers everywhere. As a tracking app with over 100 million downloads, it’s commonly used by parents to keep track of their kids. Some parents insist on it for safety reasons. Others use it to be overprotective and overbearing. The controversial privacy problems that are inherent in this sort of app have caused fights between countless parents and kids, and its existence therefore begs the question: should parents have the ability to track their children?

I, like many teenagers, was forced to download this app. My parents actually decided on making a family circle when I was a senior in high school. I was sent the invite link several times and ignored it each time, figuring my parents knew better than to ask for my location. I was almost 18. What would be the point of knowing where I am? My parents never asked me to keep a curfew, and the last time I was grounded was before I turned 13. I figured I could talk them out of it if they really pressed the issue.

Unfortunately, ignoring texts only lasts for so long. They eventually called me and said they wanted it to make sure that I was safe. The app has a function that can automatically detect car crashes and (if you decide to pay for a Gold membership) will notify authorities when an accident happens. It also offers statistics about your driving history (how fast you drive, if you accelerate or brake rapidly, or if you pick up your phone while in motion). My parents wanted to make sure they could find us in an emergency, not track our every little move. I caved, even though I thought it was ridiculous. There was no way I’d get in a car crash or get kidnapped. What was the point?

Life360, even with a standard membership, can be quite invasive. It tracks how long you stay at a specific location and can narrow down where you are to the specific street. It shows your phone battery level and allows you to remind someone to charge their phone if they have low battery. There have been times when my parents have asked why I’m spending so much time in a particular place. I’ve also been teased for going on late-night walks, as it tells parents exactly when their children get to a particular place. I see this as a violation of boundaries, given that I’d allowed the access into my personal life in the first place.

Initially, the app got under my skin. It felt like I wasn’t trusted. Didn’t my parents know that I’m capable of making good choices? Plus, I didn’t want everywhere I was going to be broadcasted to my parents, my brother, and my sister. Realistically, I knew they weren’t checking on me every second of every day, and it’s not like I was going anywhere particularly scandalous, but the fact that a full history of my location was accessible made me uncomfortable.

However, I started to realize that there were significant benefits. While my parents had my location, it meant I also had theirs. I could tell how far away they were if they were coming to pick me up and call them out if they said they were on their way, when they were actually still at home. If I saw that my mom was at the grocery store, I could call her and ask her to pick up a snack I like.

The developers have also made efforts to make kids more open to having the app on their phones. Many teenagers have developed strategies to evade detection, ranging from downloading the app on a backup phone to turning on airplane mode whenever they go out to just leaving their phones at home. That last option can leave kids stranded since it’s much harder to communicate with others without a smartphone today than it was a decade ago. If they get caught trying to evade tracking, sometimes parents crack down harder, leading to a cycle of resistance, strict rules, and harsh punishments. The developers are at least pretending to be cognizant of what kids want in order to make the app more tolerable for them, as it was review-bombed by teenagers who were sick of technology constantly breathing down their necks.

Then again, do the CEOs of Life360 really deserve such kindness? In 2021, it was revealed that the app has been selling its location data to dozens of data brokers. This data can then be sold to whoever wants access, leading to a risky spread of highly sensitive information. While the app announced that it would stop selling the data to brokers, it continues to sell precise data to Arity, a company that interprets data for other companies that deal with transportation. In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to avoid being tracked, as improved technology provides greater opportunities for data tracking. Though there are steps you can take to reduce this practice in terms of your own personal information, having your location information available at every given second that your phone is turned on seems counterproductive.

At this point, I think I’ve made my peace with the inevitability of my information being out there in the world. I feel relatively confident that I don’t have any malicious people seeking to stalk me, and my parents don’t really care what I’m up to, especially now that I’m in college. At this point, my siblings and I use the app more than they do. However, not everyone can say the same, and there’s not an easy solution. For these data companies, the allure of money is more important than any lobbying by concerned citizens or fed-up teenagers.

Being accustomed to the fact that my data is tracked at every moment is not something I should have to be used to. But then, where do you even start trying to solve that? Technology has taken over our lives in every way imaginable, for better or for worse, and as we already saw with Life360, public protest can only make so much of a dent. You can call me pessimistic, but at this point, I’ve accepted my fate. Until millions of people can muster up enough enthusiasm to actually pressure these companies, I’ll stick to using Life360 to see when my parents are coming home.

Cameron Bonnevie can be reached at cbonnevie@wesleyan.edu.