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Secret Service bought location data pulled from common apps:
The Secret Service paid a private company for access to location data generated by common smartphone apps, Motherboard reports. Internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that the agency spent $35,844 for a one-year subscription to Babel Street's product Locate X, which tracks the location of devices via data harvested from popular apps.
As Motherboard notes, the glaring issue with this contract is that it allows the law enforcement agency to buy information that it would normally need a warrant or a court order to obtain.
[...] In March, Protocol reported that US Customs and Border Protection purchased Locate X, and a former Babel Street employee told Protocol that the Secret Service and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were using the location-tracking tech. But Motherboard has the first confirmation that the Secret Service did in fact purchase Locate X.
[...] Senator Ron Wyden is reportedly planning legislation to block law enforcement from purchasing products like Locate X.
"It is clear that multiple federal agencies have turned to purchasing Americans' data to buy their way around Americans' Fourth Amendment Rights. I'm drafting legislation to close this loophole, and ensure the Fourth Amendment isn't for sale," Wyden said in a statement provided to Motherboard.
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Tuesday August 18 2020, @05:18PM (1 child)
The problem is that consumers decided that companies not only can collect the data, but that the companies own the data. I remember my parents back in the 80s talking about this. When businesses started putting their records on computers some people got scared. The question came up "Hey, is that okay that banks have records of all our financial transactions, utilities know our electricity use, insurance companies know our medical history, Blockbuster has every video I've rented, the library knows every book I've borrowed, etc...? Whose data is that?" The answer was overwhelmingly that citizens wanted the companies to control that data. It was convenient. Today we face the consequences of that decision. And legislatively, at least in the US, they have taken the route that the companies do own the data and can do anything they want with it, except for certain specific circumstances. It should have been the other way around. They should have to get explicit permission to collect it, explicit permission to keep it, and explicit permission to share it. But its too late now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2020, @03:52AM
Well how you gonna stop a person (or company) remembering what you bought from them? Seems impossible to require everybody to forget.