This is a bit dated, but the case it not yet resolved. If you search it its still pending and in mediation. Life360 is looking to limit who it sells the info to in order to resolve the case. There is no debate that they were selling the info.
I wonder if there is an open source alternative to keep track of family and friends.
I’ve looked into OwnTracks before, it even lets you set up and use your own server. But the setup/connection is fairly complicated, especially if you’re trying to get family members onto it.
A phone call or sms asking “hey where are you?” isn’t enough?
It’s just more convenient and less stressful to know that your loved ones are in safe areas and also in case something happens and they cannot get in contact you can tell where they are or at least where they’ve been.
Sorry if I’ve just become that jaded, but did anybody expect that these apps don’t sell data?
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What’s “secret” about this?
Yah, just checked their Privacy policy and it says:
We may disclose personal information, including contact information and location and movement data (including precise geolocation data), mobile device information (such as information generated by the gyroscope and accelerometer in your device), application analytics (including IP address and device identifiers), technical and analytical data, and driving event data with business partners that provide certain features and services you elect to use through or in connection with our Products or Services. Some examples of these integrated services offered by our business partners include:
Crash Detection and Emergency Dispatch Services;
Roadside assistance;
Identity theft protection; and
Driving analytics services.https://life360-legal.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/16038777217175-Life360-Privacy-Policy
I’ve been shopping for some sort of cross platform (namely iOS / Android) service like this or Apple’s Find My Friends that I’d could have some assurance that this kind of content would be kept safe and private. The search continues …
Are you literally just wanting to see the location of family members?
If you’re a self-hoster there are options, and that’s pretty much the only way you can know it’s private.
Two that come to mind are:
The PhoneTrack NextCloud app. If you run Nextcloud you can install this in nextcloud, then install a location logger on the phones. I’m more familiar with Android which has options but from a search I think OwnTracks can send to Nextcloud and supports iOS and Android (someone reported their iOS success here).
Home Assistant let’s you see locations of people on a map that is tracked with the Home Assistant mobile app on Android/iOS.
I have found uLogger or the old PhoneTrack app (that connect to GPS on a schedule) to be more accurate than apps that rely on Google telling them when the location has changed (Home Assistant and I think Owntracks). But also much more of a battery drain.
So it depends how often you want the location to be updated. I find running uLogger or PhoneTrack on the phone actually makes Home Assistant get location updates much quicker(I run both for different reasons).
Yep, that’s my goal. I’m going to check all of these projects out. Thanks for the recommendations.
I recently set up owntracks. I do like it, but to be honest, it was kinda a pain. I have not yet attempted real-time sharing which I think is more difficult in own tracks.
Check out Dawarich too.
Ah nice! It’s only a month old but looks really good. It has a warning not to run it in production and not to trust it with your data but I’m definitely going to have a play.
