Companies Behind Tile Trackers Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Failure to Protect Stalking Victims

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A proposed class action claims Tile, Inc.’s partnership with Amazon to expand the reach and efficacy of Tile trackers has “exponentially magnified” the danger faced by stalking victims.

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The 42-page lawsuit accuses Tile, parent company Life360 and Amazon of releasing the quarter-sized, location-based trackers without implementing adequate safeguards to prohibit stalkers from using the products to follow victims’ movements in real time.

First introduced in 2013, the square-shaped devices synch to an app on a user’s smartphone, the suit explains. The app uses Bluetooth technology to locate synched trackers within a range of 100 feet and a “crowd GPS” feature to find trackers over 100 feet away from the owner’s smartphone, the complaint says.

This feature sends the owner of a tracker an update on its location if the device is reported as lost and comes within range of smartphones that also have the Tile app installed, the case says.

However, Amazon began partnering with Tile in June 2021 to enhance its tracking networks, namely by letting Tile trackers tap into the Bluetooth networks created by Amazon’s various home electronic devices, including the Echo, Ring and Sidewalk Bridge products, the complaint relays.

“Moving forward, Tile would not simply have to rely on the network of smartphones with the Tile App installed,” the filing states. “Instead, it could harness the far more ubiquitous network created by the millions of Amazon Echo products throughout the country.”

The complaint contends that by making the Tile tracker “vastly more effective,” the defendants also made the product “vastly more dangerous” for stalking victims.

The manufacturer has explicitly and implicitly marketed its device as a means to track people, the complaint claims, citing a now-deleted video advertisement featuring a man attaching a Tile tracker to a bra. According to the complaint, Tile has been known to advertise its products on pornography sites and other “dubious outlets” where visitors would leave “disturbing comments” about using the trackers to find and stalk women.

In a 2015 lawsuit against the company over alleged workplace discrimination, a former Tile engineer stated that, in 2013, then-Tile COO Michael Farley “began yelling at her and telling her that she was out of line” when she pointed out the sexism in the company’s advertising, the case relays.

“Despite having knowledge of the propensity for misuse of the Tile tracker, Tile waited nine years before implementing any type of safety feature on its trackers,” the filing says. However, the case points out that the “anti-stalking” feature works only for individuals who have the Tile app downloaded on their phone, and requires users to manually check for unknown Tiles that may be traveling with them.

Further, not only does the feature have severe limitations that leave “the vast majority of the population vulnerable,” but an “anti-theft” feature released by Tile in 2023 allows customers to make their trackers completely undetectable so long as they verify their identity and agree to certain terms, the suit contends.

The plaintiffs, two California residents whose stalker monitored their movements via a Tile tracker, claim the company’s failure to ensure that its products would be used by buyers for only legitimate and lawful purposes was in “conscious disregard” of their privacy rights.

According to the complaint, one of the plaintiff’s ex-girlfriends broke into her car and hid a Tile Slim in the console of her Jeep after the couple broke up in October 2016.

“Over the next several months, the stalker would mysteriously and unexpectedly appear at locations where [the] Plaintiffs were,” the filing says. The lawsuit claims that the stalker also vandalized the plaintiffs’ cars and harassed them on their commute to work.

Although the plaintiffs discovered the hidden Tile tracker in April 2017, alerted the police and have since moved residences, the women are unable to live normal lives and are in “constant fear of reprisal,” the case says.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States who was or is at risk of being tracked by a Tile tracker without consent.

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