Placer.ai (operated by Placer Labs, Inc.) is a private, venture-backed foot-traffic and location-analytics company that receives location and proximity data from an embedded technology deployed in third-party mobile apps, then processes it into aggregated, deidentified market-research products for commercial customers (retail, CRE, advertising and others). Its own Consumer Privacy Policy states data received from partner apps is stripped of mobile advertising identifiers and other persistent identifiers before Placer aggregates it, and that Placer does not sell data about individual consumers or disclose User Identifiers to third parties, while its CCPA disclosure table confirms precise geolocation is nonetheless collected and classified as Sensitive Personal Information. The company raised a $100M Series C in January 2022 at a $1B valuation, per its own blog. In 2022, following a Senate letter from Senator Elizabeth Warren and thirteen colleagues criticizing Placer.ai (and SafeGraph) for selling cellphone-based location data tied to visits to abortion clinics, Placer.ai committed in writing to permanently disable user access to data about reproductive-health and other sensitive locations. No FTC or state-AG order, judgment, or independent security audit was found in this research.
TRACK RECORD
1 ENFORCEMENT ACTION
[2022-07-07]
Per Senator Elizabeth Warren's official Senate press release, following a May 2022 letter from Warren and thirteen Senate colleagues criticizing SafeGraph and Placer.ai for collecting and selling cellphone-based location data of people who visited abortion clinics, Placer.ai responded in writing that it commits, on a permanent basis, to disabling user access to data about reproductive-health providers and other sensitive locations.
Placer's Consumer Privacy Policy states its technology is deployed in many mobile apps and millions of devices, collecting geolocation data that is scrubbed of identifiers such as mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) before being sent to Placer, and that this data is received from third-party mobile apps that have integrated Placer's technology rather than from a direct relationship with the consumer.
Placer's own exec-blog listing confirms the company closed a $100M Series C funding round at a $1B valuation in January 2022, with the announcement authored by Ofir Lemel and a companion post by co-founder and CEO Noam Ben-Zvi explaining the company's use of the funds.
Placer's Consumer Privacy Policy identifies the operating entity as 'Placer Labs, Inc.', the company responsible for collecting, storing, using and disclosing information from mobile apps that have integrated Placer's technology.
Placer's privacy policy states the company does not disclose User Identifiers to any third parties, does not sell any data about individual consumers to anyone, and discloses only aggregated statistical information to its business customers, subject to exceptions for service providers, legal compliance, and corporate-transaction due diligence.
Per Senator Elizabeth Warren's official Senate press release, following a May 2022 letter from Warren and thirteen Senate colleagues criticizing SafeGraph and Placer.ai for collecting and selling cellphone-based location data of people who visited abortion clinics, Placer.ai responded in writing that it commits, on a permanent basis, to disabling user access to data about reproductive-health providers and other sensitive locations.
The same privacy policy states Placer collects geolocation and proximity data, time and date information, and dwell time near points of interest, determined through beacon, Wi-Fi, and other proprietary signal-processing systems — a cross-context physical-location tracking stack.