US military disables ad trackers on troops’ phones amid security fears
US military officials have disabled advertising trackers on troops' phones and computers following reports that commercially available location data was used to track American forces in the Middle East. Senator Ron Wyden released correspondence from the armed forces confirming the move.
Why this matters: The data broker industry has spent years insisting that location data is anonymous and harmless. This is what harmless looks like in practice: military personnel in active conflict zones being tracked through ad technology built into ordinary phones. The data that follows you to a coffee shop can follow a soldier to a forward operating base. If the US military had to disable these trackers to protect troops, there is a real question about what that same data is doing to everyone else who never got the memo.
Who should care: General readers · Privacy officers · Policy
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