Where Are You? Location Tracking and the Promise of Child Safety

Abstract

Life360 is a surveillance app marketed to families that tracks and shares users’ location information in the name of child safety. Using this app as a case study, I examine how one Silicon Valley company promotes the idea that digital data are inherently objective and meaningful, specifically in the way they frame location information as necessary and sufficient for protecting children from harm. Apps like Life360 sell users a service that collects, repackages, and commodifies their personal information. These functions help fulfill the promise that Silicon Valley innovations developed for consumers can help solve social problems—in this case, that an app can help make children safer in public spaces. By closely analyzing the app itself and the texts produced by the company, this article finds that such technological solutions to risk both create and relieve a new anxiety about the need to know exactly where one’s family members are at all times.