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> because it completely ruins the ability to use Bluetooth devices to deter theft

I'd rather have the assurance that at-risk groups like women, marginalized people, and notable people are not at risk of having a cheap and easy to use location tracker attached to them. As others have pointed out, these trackers are not meant for, and are ill-suited to use as anti-theft devices. We've had Lojack like devices for years and they'll still work all the same regardless of the reporting standard.

> People don't realize that Life360 is on 1 in 8 phones in the US.

So that's 12% of devices. Another way to look at it is you have a 1 in 8 chance that the device will work and notify you when a potential reporting device approaches it.

> CEO of Tile / Life360 here.

As an Android user who is only now getting to use Bluetooth beacon tech like our iPhone friends have had with airtags for quite some time, I'm in the market for these devices. Your statement here makes me think I should look for devices other than Tile, even if they did participate in the standard.

> As of today, we have zero known instances of abuse

Emphasis on known. The whole point of stalking is to hide the device and not get caught. How would a typical victim even discover it? Or even if they figured out they were stalked, that it was with a Tile device and thus report it?

ID scanning is easy to defeat. This is just ripe for abuse and it's good that Apple/Google took measures to block stalking, even at the expense of anti theft use cases.

And if it was a tile device, that it had the "help me stalk people" feature turned on. And if it did have that feature turned on, that they should report it to tile. Generally I would expect a significant fraction of people in this sort of situation aren't reporting it to anyone.

Considering the multiple examples listed in the lawsuit [1] that the CEO is aware of, there are certainly stalking instances that they know about. Just none that they know of since 2022 (when they introduced the anti stalking features) with the anti stalking features disabled.

[1] See links on page 13: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41...

I won't repeat what I have said in other comments but scroll down for more specific thoughts on the points you make.

At a meta-level, we don't think the bad behavior of a very very small number of abusive should degrade the product for tens of millions of good actors. Theft is unfortunately extremely prevalent and a key reason why customers by trackers - we think the greater good is to responsibly support this use case.

We have put safeguards in place that make it tough to use our products to stalk, and while nothing is perfect, the only complaints of stalking we have received are from people who were allegedly stalked by Tiles that did NOT have the anti-theft feature turned on. By adding this ID scanning friction, which includes a liveness check, we have empirical data that the bad actors go elsewhere.

> If you put an AirTag on say your bike, and thief steals it, they will get a notification and immediately just find and disable it.

This is not a good fit for bluetooth. Bluetooth is trivially detectable whether it's tracked centrally or not.

Humans are lazy. The average person who steals a bike is not going to pull out a Bluetooth sniffer. And if they did, they would probably find dozens of nearby devices (try it yourself - I just did and have 53 Bluetooth devices near me).

Thieves will, however, reply to an alert that says there is a tracker following you and hit the "disable" button. Friction is key. Google and Apple are making it extremely easy for thieves. We are pushing back on this.

Hi Tile Ceo,

I was able to track down my stolen vehicle with the help of Tile and now put them hidden in all my vehicles since they don't alert like an Air Tag does.

Glad to hear that! If you are up for it, can you email me - chris@life360.com - I'd love to learn more about your story

This has reaffirmed my decision to use Tile. It seems it's now the most effective option for tracking my property among similar bluetooth tags. Stalking is awful but as you say there are many more effective tools for that, tools which will still be available to people who want to use them no matter what Tile does. If an effective product gets crippled - for a good cause, sure - but crippling it doesn't actually advance that cause, why do it?

> As of today, we have zero known instances of abuse—the friction of scanning an ID is enough to make a bad guy think twice

So all I need is a stolen ID and then not only I am stalking but also ruining another person's life?

We use a third party and they do a liveness scan with a live camera feed so it is not nearly that simple.

I'm sure we can come up with edge cases or potential ways people could cheat the system, but we are adding so much risk and friction to stalkers that they would likely just buy a real stealth GPS tracker with an LTE connection.

As a genuine question, why is there no outrage for these devices that are literally marketed as stealth trackers?

Weren't you sued just last year for enabling stalking?

Yes, and we will fight it and win. This was also before we launched our anti-theft feature by the way.

If you want to see the insanity of going after bluetooth devices, just search "stealth GPS device" on google and see what comes up. Ebay is targeting me with an ad that says "Hidden GPS Tracking Device for sale" There are legit LTE enabled stalkers right there in plain sight.

Did they lose?

Being sued means nothing.

> Some people are commenting on how small our network is.

I'm currently in a city, and when I open the map it gives me a circle telling me that there are 1,807 people using tile in that circle. This city population is a bit shy of 1 million, and while the circle doesn't cover it all it does cover the densest parts, so if we conservatively say 400,000 people in that circle then that means that the percentage of people with the app is about 0.45%. Now I don't know if the Life360 users are included in that count, that said I also have never heard of anyone who uses it here.

As an aside, I do wish the app were able to update more often. I have a tile tracker on my bike (and obviously the app on my phone), and I can leave a place, bike ten minutes to home, lock up the bike, go inside, and the app will often still tell me that my bike is where it was before I rode it home. I guess there's a battery tradeoff there though.

Hey; Tile user here. I can’t figure out your iPhone app any more.

It switches between modes at random (map, we’ll notify you, and the signal meter) when the signal is weak, and it says we have to replace batteries constantly. (Even though we just replaced them — is the tile shorted out internally, or do we have to reset a timer somewhere, or what?). Also, it spams upsell attempts while doing this. You may as well be displaying ads for competitors at this high-stress point in the UI flow!

Other than the above stuff, which feel kind of like bugs, I’ve noticed it’s hard to figure out which building (in a 1 acre space) our keys were last seen in. We own all the phones and tiles around here, so giving better precision probably wouldn’t be a privacy issue.

I’d rather go with a smaller, cross platform provider, but we’re seriously considering switching to AirTag.

Thanks for standing up for functionality vs. questionable privacy protection.

Anyway, we’re rooting for you; good luck!

Weird- can you email me? chris@life360.com and I will forward this to get looked into. The map thing seems like a bug. I'd also like to learn more about your concerns on over upsells.

Steps to reproduce:

Walk outside away from all other devices.

Walk 100 paces. Put tile down. Walk back to where you started.

UI flow:

1) It shows a map of across town (last ping was hours ago).

2) tap find -> your tile is nearby, wait while we connect (with done button)

3) timeout -> map shows a dot where the phone is, without a big uncertainty circle around it. Can’t zoom.

4) reopen app. Map resets to across town (or, worse, 50 ft in the wrong direction, so you think it pinged a location).

5) walk to pick up keys. No music or phone notification. (Later, an email arrives, usually.)

6) tap around to debug (want to pay for smart alerts?)

7) (when someone else asks me for help). Where’s my credit card?!? Tile is holding my keys hostage for $3!!

8) (if you didn’t pick up the keys) go to step 2.

This is deterministic on iOS with everything up to date. It’s been like this for over a year across multiple iPhone generations.

Personally I feel like the anti-theft nature of these devices is massively outweighed by the horrible outcomes of stalking and clandestine tracking. They're not a theft deterrent, in fact they're generally hidden so a thief has no idea it's there. And what are you going to do, show up with a posse to get your stuff back?

The world would be better if tracking devices did not exist. It's a shame you've decided to actively reject anti-stalking features.

Try thinking before posting.

You give the location of your missing property to the Police when stolen.

Tile/Life360 is now a superior product while AirTags are basically useless paperweight.

If you want to stalk someone you have always had numerous options including superior gps/cell based trackers.

>You give the location of your missing property to the Police when stolen.

They will do nothing.

Maybe in the US, I know several cases where stolen bikes were returned and thieves charged in central Europe. I've never lost anything, but had a bike stolen and I'm in fear of having another one stolen. GPS trackers are not a real option for me (monthly fee, high battery consumption, not having an e-bike which would make it easier). These trackers are a great idea and I do get why stalking is an issue. But I'm with the Tile CEO when it comes to other or even better options for stalking. GPS trackers are way more accurate and I assume that swapping them or recharging them is less of a concern in that case.

It's a shame that stalking is a concern. It's a shame that this had to be implemented and effectively breaks the devices use case for most people. But I'm not even mad at Apple or Google, because I also think that it is their responsibility to protect people from being stalked.

Tile is also not an option for me, in Europe pretty much no one uses it. I will still try my luck with Apple and Google/Pebblebee Tags. Does anyone have experience how long it takes until you get notified about a tracker moving with you?

I am very open to being wrong and changing course, but let's have a data-driven decision.

When we launched our anti-theft feature, we were clear that if we found there was widespread abuse, we would change course. We have had literally zero complaints of anyone being stalked with a device where anti-theft was enabled.

And I think you are misunderstanding the new standards. Google and Apple will proactively notify thieves of nearby trackers, and allow a thief to disable it. This is next level bad for anyone relying on their tracking device to protect against theft.

What is the data that would change your mind? I would change my mind if we found that more than .1% of our customers were abusing this feature.

How is it an anti-theft device if the thief doesn’t know it’s there?

I could see this being used in the aggregate to ascertain drop off points or chop shops, but at an individual level it doesn’t stop your stuff from being stolen. Even the aggregate case requires buy in from law enforcement to actually act on the information which is not a small thing.

Sure, I agree with that. We did user testing and people understood the concept. It is anti-theft in the sense you have a real chance of getting your stuff back, unlike with AirTags and now Google network devices where thieves will just disable the tracker.

> We have had literally zero complaints of anyone being stalked with a device where anti-theft was enabled.

First, it's highly likely that someone being stalked wouldn't realize a tile device was the cause. Secondly, you said Tile and Life360 are on only 12% of devices. So maybe 1 out of 10 stalkers will be successful in using your device to stalk. That's not enough data to state so conclusively that this doesn't happen. I'm sure if Tile was more popular (and thus more functional) and more stalkers knew they were the best devices for stalking, they would use them.

As a personal bias, I believe companies like yours are pathologically unable to do the right thing. Take my reply with that in mind.

I carefully examined life360.com, trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody who was stalked, magically divined that life360 was involved, and wanted to report the issue. The extent of my options on life360.com are:

1. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

And that's it. There does not exist a "contact us" or other general mechanism, and there certainly does not exist an abuse reporting mechanism. If that happens to exist behind other filters or paywalls then it's not relevant when discussing how the average customer would interact with your website.

With that in mind, I would expect an exactly 0% abuse rate regardless of how abusive your product actually is. You confirm that number. I'm not surprised.

The ball is in your court. How do you prove to the world that you _actually_ care about abuse? How _should_ a real abusee interact with your website? Why isn't it obvious? What are the exact numbers? And so on...

We have a member protection link at the bottom of our page - it is not buried. https://www.life360.com/member-protection-resources/

We encourage people to first go to the police, and we work with law enforcement to help bring criminals to justice on a regular basis.

That link specifically dissuades anyone who is a victim from contacting your company. It directs them to contact police or a lawyer, and you provide no ability in that link to contact your company.

Going to law enforcement is the way to resolve this. The company can then disclose the identity of the owner to law enforcement.

Really puts the "we've had zero reports" in context though, doesn't it?

I take that to mean there were zero law enforcement reports. Going to law enforcement is always your port of call when dealing with any sort of criminal activity happening as it relates to a tech company. Even Apple says this as it relates to AirTags.

Think about it for a second. If anyone could contact a tech company to get people's information based on a serial number, this would be abused by people who could steal your phone, airpods, or bag containing an airtag, claim to be stalked, contact the manufacturer directly, and get your home address from the manufacturer by giving them the serial number.

"If you feel your safety is at risk, you can contact your local law enforcement, who can work with Apple. You might need to provide the AirTag or its serial number."

https://support.apple.com/guide/personal-safety/stay-safe-wi...

> They're not a theft deterrent, in fact they're generally hidden so a thief has no idea it's there.

A potential car thief doesn't know if your car has an alarm on it either, but he just assumes that it does because most do. With wide enough adoption of these devices, it could work out the same.

My 2022 car has a built in tracker. These will likely become standard.

If you think stalking is more common than theft then you must live in a very, very low crime area.

Theft is more common. Each instance of stalking does more damage. I haven't the faintest clue how I should weigh the cost against the benefit here, but I certainly don't like how the CEO here is blatantly attempting to downplay the stalking-enabling-externality their theft prevention device has.

Social projection is far more common than theft

I didn't say it's more common, but it's FAR more serious.

I do agree there is a role for an anti-theft device specifically where there is vastly higher requirements from the user (government identification, liveness checks, etc).

I presumed such a device would require a low-power cellular service. Glad to see you're making it work using Bluetooth.

That said these higher requirements should not apply if the device has these anti-stalking notifications.

Btw I loved your TikTok account!

Judging from the pettiness of the negative comments against Tile, I have to assume it’s the single greatest product on the market! Also, it appears your comment is being suppressed, because the age and number of replies should put it higher, but it’s now buried hours later.

> Some people are commenting on how small our network is. People don't realize that Life360 is on 1 in 8 phones in the US.

Do you have any info or statistics to share about the size of your network in Europe?

Never thought I'd go for a Tile, but you make a compelling case.

"We are huge outside of tech bubbles" ... Only the Bubble is huge! Nothing else exists outside the bubble. There shall be no exception.

> If you put an AirTag on say your bike, and thief steals it, they will get a notification and immediately just find and disable it.

And if a stalker puts it there, me finding it is a feature.

> scan a government ID

Considering how badly companies keep my private data private, be it email addresses or even direct passwords, scanning a government ID for a $10 tag seems really bad from a privacy perspective. Once you get hacked too (like many other, larger companies have been), the hackers will have all the peoples ID scans too to use with another company implementing such features.

Thanks for commenting. I’m a fan of your products.

HN FTW!

I used to love Tile, but nah this ain't it and I'm glad I got off your product ASAP. I'm not ok with how easily Tiles enable stalking.

You were literally just sued for this https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/tile...

Edit: Hey man I'm not engaging you on this, you chose to opt-out of this safety feature and you've enabled stalkers that target at risk groups like me. Nope.

Yes, we were sued, but we will fight it and win. I think most people on Hacker News know to approach lawsuits with skepticism.

And I feel like many people being critical of us are arguing with emotions and not data. You have to scan a government ID and agree to severe penalties for misusing our product. We have had zero instances of reported stalking from anyone who has enabled the anti-theft feature.

Can you articulate with data why what we are doing is problematic?

I briefly installed Life360 when some members of a group trip tried to sell the rest of us on it as a sort of emergency personal location beacon, like the colonists had in Aliens. It's one of the most domestic-abuser-friendly apps I've ever seen.

Most of the people your products are being misused to stalk can't even turn off their location sharing because the person who's insisted they install the app/hardware will assume that doing so means they're off spending time with someone else, or whatever their personal paranoid fantasy is. Why would someone being subjected to that contact you? It would just enrage whoever is monitoring their movements when their account was suspended, or whatever your process is.

The people misusing your products in that way don't think they're doing anything wrong, so they're not going to hesitate to have you verify their ID.

> Most of the people your products are being misused to stalk can't even turn off their location sharing because the person who's insisted they install the app/hardware will assume that doing so means they're off spending time with someone else, or whatever their personal paranoid fantasy is.

Other than location history, is there a big difference between Life360 and builtin iPhone location sharing? To me, that's not enough to put the product in a different category.

Direct link to complaint (amended version): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41...

Since you’re in an at-risk group, I strongly suggest you look into the sorts of devices the CEO mentioned, especially if you own a car (or any portable thing that could hold a pound of batteries, like a bike or a scooter).

Though some things in that space are marketed to stalkers, there are legitimate use cases for such technologies, and therefore the only LTE tracking devices I’ve seen in person were sold at reputable stores.