How The Us Military Buys Location Data From Ordinary Apps – According to a new report today, the US military is buying location data from a number of apps, including a Muslim prayer app used by 98 million people. Another app is a Muslim dating app with over 100,000 downloads.
Other apps are seemingly random, including a popular Craigslist app, a storm tracker and a leveling app that helps you set shelves…
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How The Us Military Buys Location Data From Ordinary Apps
Motherboard has learned that the US military is buying granular movement data of people around the world, collected from innocent apps. The most popular app in a group Motherboard analyzed with this type of data sale is a Muslim prayer and Quran app with over 98 million downloads worldwide […] With public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis , the motherboard separated into two parts. , parallel data streams that the US military uses, or has used, to acquire location data. One relies on a company called Babel Street, which creates a product called Locate X. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military tasked with counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance, has acquired access to Locate X to assist in special forces operations overseas. . Another way is through a company called X-Mode, which captures location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military […] In a statement, Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for US Special Operations Command, confirmed the purchase of Locate X, adding “Our access to the software is used to support the mission needs of Special Operations Forces overseas. To protect privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens, we have strictly defined rules and policies.
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Although Apple requires that location data sold to third parties be anonymized, a previous NYT piece described how such data can be linked to specific individuals.
[One caller] leaves a home in upstate New York at 7 a.m. and goes to a high school 14 miles away, staying until late afternoon every school day. Only one person makes the trip: Lisa Magrin, a 46-year-old math teacher […] We had military personnel with security clearances going home at night. We followed law enforcement officers as they took their children to school […] We saw a senior official at the Department of Defense march in the Women’s March [and] walk through high schools, friends’ homes, a visit to Joint Base Andrews, work days in 2017 at the Pentagon. and a ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall with President Barack Obama.App users are highly unlikely to be aware of the end users of their location data, even if they read lengthy privacy policies, which almost no one does. Worse than that, the same is true for some app developers.
There’s an entire industry of location/data aggregation companies that pay developers of popular (or just semi-popular–anything with users) apps to embed their frameworks into their apps. This is especially true for apps that ask for location permissions for legitimate purposes — things like weather or dating apps. If you, the user, grant access to the app’s location, you also grant it to all frameworks implemented in the app. This is how this X-Mode company collects, packages and sells location data for millions of unknown users who have never heard of X-Mode. They are like parasites of the privacy policy. X-Mode, in particular, is not a scandal – the scandal is the whole industry, and the widespread practice of applications just to include them for money without checking what they do, or revealing these “partnerships” to users.
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Maybe it’s time for Apple to update its developer guidelines to ban the sale of location data to brokers? Please let us know your views in the comments.
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Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor. He is known for his writings and diaries, which explore his experience of Apple products over time, for a deeper analysis. He is also writing a story with two technothriller novels, several short SF films and a rom-com! The Muslim prayer app, which has more than 98 million downloads, is one of the apps connected to an extensive supply chain that sends personal data of ordinary people to brokers, contractors, and the military.
Motherboard has learned that the US military is buying granular movement data of people around the world, collected from innocent apps. The most popular app in a Motherboard group linked to this type of data selling is the Muslim prayer and Quran app, which has more than 98 million downloads worldwide. Others include a Muslim dating app, the popular Craigslist app, an app for tracking hurricanes, and a “leveling” app that can be used to help, for example, set up shelves in a bedroom.
There’s A Multibillion Dollar Market For Your Phone’s Location Data
Through public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis, Motherboard uncovered two separate, parallel data streams that the US military uses, or has used, to acquire location data. One relies on a company called Babel Street, which creates a product called Locate X. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military tasked with counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance, has acquired access to Locate X to assist in special forces operations overseas. . Another route is through a company called X-Mode, which receives location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military. The news included the opaque space data industry and the fact that the US military, which has used other space data unofficially to target drone strikes, bought access to sensitive data. Many of the users of the apps involved in the data supply chain are Muslim, which is significant as the United States has waged a decades-long war against mostly Muslim terrorist groups in the Middle East, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians during military operations. all over. the intervention of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Motherboard is not aware of any specific operations in which this type of app-based location data has been used by the US military. Apps that send data to X-Mode include Muslim Pro, an app that reminds users when to pray and how Mecca is relative to the user’s current location. According to the Muslim Pro website, the app has been downloaded more than 50 million times on Android, and a total of more than 98 million on other platforms, including iOS, according to the Google Play Store.
The Muslim Pro website reads, “The Most Popular Muslim Application!”. The application also includes chapters and audio readings of the Quran. (After publishing this piece, Muslim Pro said it would no longer share data with X-Mode). Another app that sent data to X-Mode was Muslim Mingle, a dating app that has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Are you working on Babel Street, X-Mode, Venntel, or any of the applications mentioned in this section? Did you know, or did you know, anything else about the location data industry? We love you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal at +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr at josephcox, OTR chat at jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or by email Contact joseph.cox@ Some of the app developers Motherboard spoke with weren’t aware of who their users’ location data ended up with, and even if a user were to examine an app’s privacy policy, they might not ultimately realize how many industries, companies, or government agencies different buy some of them. the most sensitive data. The US legalization of this information has raised questions about authorities buying their way into location data that might normally require a warrant to access. But the USSOCOM deal and accompanying reporting is the first evidence that the purchase of US location data has expanded from law enforcement to military agencies. USSOCOM bought access to Locate X, a location data product from a company called Babel Street, according to procurement records disclosed by Motherboard. A former Babel Street employee explained to Motherboard how users of the product can draw a shape on a map, see all of Babel Street on that data space, and then track a specific area to see where it is.
The Locate X data itself is anonymized, but the source said “we can completely anonymize a person.” Babel Street staff will “play with it, to be honest,” the former employee added. USSOCOM purchased “additional software licenses” for Locate X and another text analysis-based product called Babel X in April, according to public records. An additional set of licenses costs around $90,600, records show. In a statement, Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for US Special Operations Command, confirmed the purchase of Locate X, adding “Our access to the software is used to support the needs of Special Operations Forces missions overseas. We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies not to protect privacy, civil.
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