404 Media: Hackers Claim Massive Breach of Location Data Giant, Threaten to Leak Data. “Hackers claim to have compromised Gravy Analytics, the parent company of Venntel which has sold masses of smartphone location data to the U.S. government. The hackers said they have stolen a massive amount of data, including customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/01/12/404-media-hackers-claim-massive-breach-of-location-data-giant-threaten-to-leak-data/

"Hackers claim to have compromised Gravy Analytics, the parent company of Venntel which has sold masses of smartphone location data to the U.S. government. The hackers said they have stolen a massive amount of data, including customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data harvested from smartphones which show peoples’ precise movements, and they are threatening to publish the data publicly.

The news is a crystalizing moment for the location data industry. For years, companies have harvested location information from smartphones, either through ordinary apps or the advertising ecosystem, and then built products based on that data or sold it to others. In many cases, those customers include the U.S. government, with arms of the military, DHS, the IRS, and FBI using it for various purposes. But collecting that data presents an attractive target to hackers.

“A location data broker like Gravy Analytics getting hacked is the nightmare scenario all privacy advocates have feared and warned about. The potential harms for individuals is haunting, and if all the bulk location data of Americans ends up being sold on underground markets, this will create countless deanonymization risks and tracking concerns for high risk individuals and organizations,” Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Silent Push, and who has followed the location data industry closely, told 404 Media. “This may be the first major breach of a bulk location data provider, but it won't be the last.”"

https://www.404media.co/hackers-claim-massive-breach-of-location-data-giant-threaten-to-leak-data/

#CyberSecurity #USA #Venntel #DataBreaches #LocationData #Surveillance #Privacy #DataProtection

"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced sweeping action against some of the most important companies in the location data industry on Tuesday, including those that power surveillance tools used by a wide spread of U.S. law enforcement agencies and demanding they delete data related to certain sensitive areas like health clinics and places of worship.

Venntel, through its parent company Gravy Analytics, takes location data from smartphones, either through ordinary apps installed on them or through the advertising ecosystem, and then provides that data feed to other companies who sell location tracking technology to the government or sells the data directly itself. Venntel is the company that provides the underlying data for a variety of other government contractors and surveillance tools, including Locate X. 404 Media and a group of other journalists recently revealed Locate X could be used to pinpoint phones that visited abortion clinics.

The FTC says in a proposed order that Gravy and Venntel will be banned from selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data, except in “limited circumstances” involving national security or law enforcement."

#USA #FTC #LocationData #Venntel #Gravy #DataBrokers #DataBrokerage #DataProtection #Privacy #Surveillance

https://www.404media.co/ftc-bans-location-data-company-that-powers-the-surveillance-ecosystem/

Headline: FTC Bans Location Data Company That Powers the #Surveillance Ecosystem

Subtitle: #Venntel is a primary provider of location data to the government or other companies that sell to U.S. agencies. The #FTC is banning Venntel from selling data related to health clinics, refugee shelters, and much more.

Source: https://www.404media.co/email/83c88f3b-7fe2-476a-8ad7-38e2d1f1686c

#Privacy

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/