“Having that helped me a lot because there was one day that she got a little bit confused from going to the church in the morning, coming back, and then I could ask a friend of mine to pick her up,” she said.

Putting some ‘nobility’ around it

Apple said that it doesn’t have access to this information, and Life360 — which has previously reported having more than two million users in Australia — didn’t respond to an SBS News request for information.

However, the number of certain crimes, such as domestic violence-related assaults and sexual assaults, has increased in recent years.

“I think in those sorts of ways, where there is regular checking in on consent, the clarity of purpose, all of that is actually a great benefit in how we live our lives.”

A normalisation of surveillance?

She said that, as digital surveillance creeps into ever-more aspects of our lives — work, education, interactions with the government — we come to normalise surveillance in our personal lives.

“If someone’s trying to articulate the violence of their experience … it might be discounted by someone else. They might say, ‘Oh no, that’s really normal. My partner and I do it too,’ but what is actually happening is very different,” she said.

“Even if someone dresses up their behaviour as good intentions or caring and concern, if the other doesn’t experience it that way, then the issue has to be dealt with.”

“We are conflating, sometimes, access with love and devotion.”

‘It’s definitely spying’