Big Brother Babysitter

Friend,

In today’s world of constant digital tracking, putting a family surveillance app like Life360 on your child’s phone or using Find My to track your friends might seem harmless enough. But here’s the thing: family surveillance apps are basically ankle monitors in family-friendly disguise.

Yesterday, S.T.O.P. released Big Brother Babysitter: The Carceral Logic of Family Surveillance Apps, a report detailing how family surveillance apps transfer surveillance used for probation and parole to personal relationships. The report details how some courts use Life360 to track people on community release. We also compare openly installed family surveillance apps to secret stalkerware, showing that both pose the same danger: knowing that an app is there doesn’t make it less capable of enabling abuse and control.

Developers should pull family surveillance apps from shelves. At the very least, they should implement the anti-abusability measures recommended by advocates for survivors of domestic abuse. Regulators should rein in family surveillance apps using federal and state wiretap laws, and step in to ensure that app companies stop selling our location data.

Meanwhile, if you wouldn’t make someone wear an ankle monitor for your peace of mind, don’t make them use Life360, or any other location-sharing app. I get it: I’m a parent and would do anything to keep my child out of harm’s way. But surveillance and an anxious sense of control don’t make anyone safe. So join me in opting out of the big brother babysitters’ club.