Mastodawn

Benjamin Carr, Ph.D. 👨🏻‍💻🧬Dec 5, 2024

#FTC bans #databrokers from selling Americans’ sensitive #location data
The FTC banned data brokers #Mobilewalla and #GravyAnalytics from harvesting and selling Americans' location tracking data linked to sensitive locations, like #churches, #healthcare facilities, #military installations, and #schools.

But otherwise...... track away.... argh
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ftc-bans-data-brokers-from-selling-americans-sensitive-location-data/

FTC bans data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive location data

Today, the FTC banned data brokers Mobilewalla and Gravy Analytics from harvesting and selling Americans' location tracking data linked to sensitive locations, like churches, healthcare facilities, military installations, and schools.

BleepingComputer

Chuck Darwin Dec 4, 2024

The United States Federal Trade Commission is taking action against two American #data #brokers accused of unlawfully trafficking in people’s sensitive location data.

The data was used, the agency says, to track Americans in and around churches, military bases, and doctors’ offices, among other protected sites.

It was sold not only for advertising purposes but also for political campaigns and government uses, including immigration enforcement.

#Mobilewalla, a Georgia-based data broker that’s said to have digitally tracked the residents of domestic abuse shelters, is accused by the agency of purposefully tracking protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
In a court filing, the FTC says Mobilewalla attempted to unmask the protesters’ racial identities by tracking their mobile devices to, for example, Hindu temples and Black churches

The FTC also accused #Gravy #Analytics and its subsidiary #Venntel of harvesting and exploiting consumers’ location data without consent, alleging that the company used that data to unfairly infer health decisions and religious beliefs.

According to the FTC, Gravy Analytics collected over 17 billion location signals from approximately a billion mobile devices daily.
It has reportedly sold access to that data to federal law enforcement agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-mobilewalla-gravy-analytics-orders/

FTC Says Data Brokers Unlawfully Tracked Protesters and US Military Personnel

The FTC is targeting data brokers that monitored people’s movements during protests and around US military installations. But signs suggest the Trump administration will be far more lenient.

WIRED

AK Digitaler Wandel Nov 18, 2021

Databrokers harvested data from tracking-based ads and sell to “government entities to track mobile phones without warrants”. https://www.wsj.com/articles/mobilewalla-says-data-it-gathered-from-consumers-cellphones-ended-up-with-government-11637242202

Your private data does not just go to the ad company of the ad you see, but to thousands of firms bidding on ads for someone at your location.

Naturally, the data ended up in the hands of the US military and DHS.

#Mobilewalla #EndSurveillanceAdsNow

WSJ News Exclusive | How Cellphone Data Collected for Advertising Landed at U.S. Government Agencies

Mobilewalla was the source of some of the advertising data used by government entities to track mobile phones without warrants, shedding new light on how device location data is harvested and sold in a secretive multibillion-dollar industry.