(6/6) At the risk of being long-winded, we'll end it with this last one (there's countless more on the app stores). Location sharing apps do not need to collect your location in order to provide you with their service. They do so out of greed and disregard for your safety and your right to privacy. "Data Not Linked to You" is how they try to pull the wool over our eyes, while some just blatantly lie in their app store listing. When downloading anything practice "Rarely trust and always verify"

(5/6) That's a lot of data collected, linked to you and sold. The security risk this presents to people, families and children is insane. Collecting this data means they know where you live, where you work, your favorite places to frequent, your kids school, your friends, your doctor's office, your loved ones' homes, how you get to work, your entire pattern of life. They sell that to data brokers that do not care who they sell it to and what will be done with that information.

(4/6) Here's a quote: "We may also share location information with third parties for advertising, research and analytic purposes. If you want to opt-out of the collection of your location data, please adjust your settings in your mobile device to limit the app's access to your location data" AKA "if you don't want us to sell your location data, you can't use our app" because what's the point of a location sharing app if you disable the app's access to your location? They have 29K downloads.

(3/6)This one gets us pretty heated. These guys claim they don't collect any data which was an immediate red flag given there was no mention of end-to-end encryption or other security measures. So we checked out their privacy policy (both of them, one linked on the Apple Store and one on their website) - both made it very clear that they do collect. We'll quote it in the next post.

(2/6) Another prime example of disregard for user privacy within an app that has built it's brand around keeping your family safe. "As if!" These guys don't even bother anonymizing your data, which wouldn't make it any better.

(1/6) Here's one of the main players in the location sharing space. They got caught selling user location to data brokers (whose customers included gov agencies) & have since done little to actually cease the practice. Now they say they only share the data with 3rd parties that are integral to in app services, & nothing stops them from continuing the practice & kicking back a share of the projects. "Data Not Linked to You" ≠ "Not Collected", it is collected which is even more troubling.