New documents reveal 'huge' scale of US government's cell phone location data tracking

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used mobile location data to track people’s movements on a much larger scale than previously known, according to new documents unearthed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

It’s no secret that U.S. government agencies have been obtaining and using location data collected by Americans’ smartphones. In early 2020, a Wall Street Journal report revealed that both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought access to millions of smartphone users' location data to track undocumented immigrants and suspected tax dodgers.

However, new documents obtained by the ACLU through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit now reveal the extent of this warrantless data collection. The 6,000-plus records reviewed by the civil rights organization contained approximately 336,000 location points across North America obtained from people’s phones. They also reveal that in just three days in 2018, CBP obtained records containing around 113,654 location points in the southwestern United States — more than 26 location points per minute.

The bulk of the data that CBP obtained came from its contract with Venntel, a location data broker that aggregates and sells information quietly siphoned from smartphone apps. By purchasing this data from data brokers, officials are sidestepping the legal process government officials would typically need to go through in order to access cell phone data.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/documents-reveal-huge-scale-us-141255083.html

[James48]

1. That is horrible.

Remember- the Supreme Court says there is no right to privacy.

Now with 99% less privacy.


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[Tetrachloride]

2. For aficionados of the genre, the modern era was

brought to public light by 1988 or a bit before.

The size of the the data is the only real surprise, abstractly speaking.

[crickets]

3. Why is it even legal to sell this data in the first place? Grr. nt

[ruet]

4. Because...

Last edited Mon Jul 18, 2022, 03:49 PM - Edit history (1)

you agreed to it when you "signed" your service contract. It's a huge loophole that needs to be closed.

[crickets]

8. Yes, it's one of those things that should not be required

in order to receive necessary services.

[Bayard]

5. "Sidestepping the legal process"

Completely slimy.

[FakeNoose]

6. Pro Tip: when you buy a burner phone, don't use a credit card to pay for it

[Torchlight]

7. Regardless of whether it's legal or not,

I've made the presumption from my Internet Day 1 that any digital footprint I send or receive over the internet is tracked, logged, collated and preserved by companies, by governments, and by individuals.

From my (albeit tiny) chair, there is no email, post, attachment or view made without my assumption it can be accessed by a thousand different people given reason, resource and motive.

Having done a backwards trace on myself recently, I had a much fuller realization of the extent of what data mining operations can do. And does do.