Is Your Car Tracker Selling Your Data?

What data does a car tracker collect?

Every GPS car tracker collects a core set of data every time you drive. Understanding exactly what's recorded helps you make informed decisions about which provider to trust.

• •Location coordinates — Your precise GPS position, typically recorded every 1-30 seconds depending on the tracker. This creates a detailed map of everywhere you drive.
• •Speed data — Your speed at each recorded point. OBD-II trackers read this directly from the vehicle's computer, which is more accurate than GPS-derived speed estimates.
• •Trip routes and timestamps — When each journey started and ended, the exact route taken, and how long you stopped at each location.
• •Engine and vehicle data — OBD-II trackers can read ignition status, battery voltage, and in some cases engine diagnostics. Basic GPS-only trackers don't collect this.
• •Driving behaviour events — Harsh braking, rapid acceleration, and sharp cornering events, used to calculate driving scores and coaching feedback.

This data is valuable — it reveals daily routines, workplace locations, school runs, and personal habits. That's why it matters enormously who has access to it and what they do with it.

Do car tracker companies sell your data?

Some do. The most high-profile case involved Life360, the family location-sharing app used by around 98 million people worldwide as of early 2026 (per Life360's own Q1 2026 results).

In December 2021, The Markup published an investigation revealing that Life360 was selling precise location data to approximately 12 data broker companies, including Cuebiq and X-Mode (now Outlogic). A former employee described Life360 as "the largest data broker you've never heard of." The data sold included precise GPS coordinates that could track individual users' movements between home, work, school, and other locations.

Life360 later announced it would stop selling precise location data, but the incident exposed a fundamental business model problem: when a tracking service is free or very cheap, your data is often the product being sold to fund the business.

Oculamor's approach is different. We charge a transparent subscription fee (from £7.99/month) that fully funds the service. We have no financial incentive to monetise your data because you are our customer, not our product. We never sell, share, or licence location data to any third party — and that commitment is written into our terms of service.

How Oculamor handles your data

• 1.Secure storage — All data is encrypted in transit using TLS and stored on secure server infrastructure with restricted access controls.
• 2.90-day retention for personal use — Personal and family trip data is automatically deleted after 90 days (journeys you classify as business are kept up to 6 years for tax evidence, and business workspaces keep journeys at least 7 years as HMRC evidence). You can also delete any trip manually at any time.
• 3.GDPR compliant — We comply fully with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. Data is processed lawfully, for a specific purpose, and minimised to what's necessary.
• 4.No third-party sharing — Your data is never shared with advertisers, data brokers, insurance companies, or any other third party. The only people who see your data are you and family members you explicitly invite.
• 5.User-controlled deletion — Delete individual trips, request a full data export, or request erasure of your account at any time. Erasure is honoured against our live systems, subject to legal and tax retention obligations.

Your rights under UK GDPR

As a UK resident, you have specific legal rights over your personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (retained from EU law) and the Data Protection Act 2018. These rights apply to any car tracker company operating in or serving UK customers.

• •Right of access (Subject Access Request) — You can request a full copy of all personal data a company holds about you. They must respond within one calendar month, free of charge.
• •Right to erasure (Right to be Forgotten) — You can request deletion of your personal data. The company must comply unless it has a legal reason to retain specific records (for example tax record-keeping obligations or an active billing dispute).
• •Right to data portability — You can request your data in a commonly used, machine-readable format so you can transfer it to another service.
• •Right to object — You can object to your data being processed for direct marketing or profiling at any time.

The DPA 2018 also includes a domestic purposes exemption (Section 170, Schedule 2) that is relevant to car tracking. Processing personal data for purely personal, family, or household purposes is exempt from most GDPR obligations. This means tracking your own vehicle or your child's car for family safety is generally lawful without needing to conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment — provided you own the vehicle and aren't tracking someone without their knowledge for purposes beyond domestic use.

If you believe a tracker company has mishandled your data, you can lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent data protection authority.

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