Let’s Talk About Your Data
Helium Mobile never sells or shares your data with third parties. Full stop.
Helium Mobile puts you in control of your data. Subscribers earn Cloud Points by sharing anonymized location data to help improve the network. But unlike other companies, we never sell or share your data with third parties.
We know. "Free" is typically marketing speak for too good to be true. The Zero Plan stands out because it’s a win-win—you get free service, and we, Helium Mobile, grow stronger with your help. You get great cell service, and we get your help building more affordable connectivity for you and all our subscribers. When you share your anonymized location data with us—and ONLY us—you help contribute to the bigger picture, a better network, and in return, we can offer you the Zero Plan.
But what does this mean for you? And why are we doing it? We’re all about transparency, so let’s break it down.
Why Is Helium Mobile Asking Me to Share My Location?
On the most basic level, sharing your location helps us achieve our goal of improving network coverage. For the Zero Plan, it is not optional. Think of it like this: You get free phone service, we get the data we need to build more and better coverage.
Tell me more
We use two networks to provide coverage for our subscribers: Our partner’s nationwide 5G network and the Helium Network. The Helium Network is a community-built network that launched in 2019 with the goal of affordably expanding global connectivity.
The Helium Network is built and maintained by people. This community-built coverage is much less expensive to deploy and manage than coverage built by telcos, and as a result, it costs less to provide service generally, and even less as more people use the Helium Network.
What Does Helium Mobile See When I Share My Location?
Your location information is anonymized. Our team does not track your personal location. We only see overall subscriber location trends, which helps us understand where network coverage is needed the most.
The map above is what the Helium community sees once the anonymized location information is processed. It isn’t tied to you, it can’t be reverse engineered to identify you, and locations are scaled up to a few relative city blocks, as you can see in the map below. The different colors displayed give us an idea of how concentrated our subscriber base is in a given area and how much data they are consuming. Higher data usage means more demand, which in turn means a greater opportunity for the community to create additional network coverage.
For example, one member of the community saw an opportunity to serve their community with Helium Network coverage and now provides cell service to over 3,500 people per month on the Upper West side of New York City.
Other carriers are taking note of this approach as well and have chosen to have their subscribers use Helium Network coverage in places where their own network has gaps, or where towers tend to get congested by too many users. Check out Helium World,where you can see the over 300,000 users who are connecting to the Helium Network every day. But here's the thing: Only Helium Mobile subscribers get the benefit of a free plan and rewards through earning Cloud Points.
Tell me more
Some aspects of providing coverage can be intuitive. We know there are a lot of people in places like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other big cities. And within those cities, we know that there are super busy areas like Times Square in New York City, Abbot Kinney in Venice, and Millennium Park in the heart of Chicago. But there are tons of other locations that need coverage that the Helium community might not intuitively know about: smaller cities and towns, hidden gems in big cities, highly populated suburbs, etc. When you share your location data with us in exchange for the Zero Plan, you’re not only helping our subscribers, but also the community-built Helium Network as a whole.
Rolling out coverage takes years, and the big carriers have a several-decade head start, which is a big reason why there are still only a few carriers for you to choose from (and usually at a high cost 💰 ). We want to make sure we’re hitting the locations that will benefit our subscribers the most, and this is one way to quickly isolate that data.
How Is My Location Data Used?
Helium Mobile does not sell your location data to third-party advertisers. Ever. Full stop.
Location data is immediately anonymized and sent to a secure location: a latitude, longitude, and a subscriber identifier that does not contain names, addresses, or phone numbers. It gets stored and processed in a secured location in the cloud with limited access. The precise location is then scaled up to a less precise latitude/longitude aggregated with other subscribers’ location information and then displayed on the map. The data displayed on the map is on at least a 24-hour time delay and aggregated over the past 30+ days of information.
A Fair Trade for Free Service and Cloud Points
For sharing your anonymized location, you get free service through the Zero Plan, plus, with all plans—Zero, Air, Infinity—you can earn Cloud Points.
What are Cloud Points?
Cloud Points are rewards Helium Mobile subscribers earn. They’re our way of paying you back for helping to improve the network by sharing your anonymized location data. Spend Cloud Points on extra data, swag, morning coffee, travel and so much more in the upcoming Cloud Store.
We think this is a pretty fair trade, but if you do not agree you always have options with Helium Mobile. Our Air Plan and Infinity Plan both allow you to opt out of location sharing if you want—you just won’t earn Cloud Points.
We Are Not Selling Your Data. Other Carriers Are.
Keep in mind that most carriers are already collecting and selling your location data without your consent, often leading to data breaches and poor outcomes. We at Helium Mobile strive to be transparent: We're not selling your data. We use your anonymized data to improve cellular coverage for all Americans.
Join the movement that puts your choice first, and rewards you for helping to create connectivity for everyone.
Questions?
Check out our Support Center or contact them at [email protected]
Terms and conditions apply. Eligibility for the no-cost Zero Plan requires location-sharing activation. The merchants represented are not sponsors of the rewards or otherwise affiliated with Helium Mobile. The logos and other identifying marks attached are trademarks of and owned by each represented company and/or its affiliates.