California Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is urging the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) to investigate a Virginia - free-base companyrevealedby the Associated Press to provide law enforcement agencies across the U.S. with access to cellphone tracking technology capable of mapping people ’s movements “ months back in metre . ”
Ina letter this calendar week , Eshoo call on Lina Khan , the commission ’s chair , to “ immediately look into ” the company , Fog Data Science LLC , “ to ensure that surveillance advertising becomes a prohibited commercial enterprise practice . ”
On Sept. 2 , an Associated Press report key out the company ’s product as an “ unknown cellphone tracking tool ” capable of look “ hundreds of million of records from 250 million mobile machine . ” The software , sleep with as Fog Reveal , operates on location data culled from hundreds of consumer apps , purportedly for advertising purposes .
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., arrives to Rayburn Building on Thursday, 6 March 2025.Photo: Tom Williams (AP)
Fog Data Science reportedly purchases this data , which can be used totrack the movementsof an individual mobile twist over a period of months , and repackages it in a weapons platform used by at least two dozen government agency for investigative purposes . ( The company has previously pass up to reveal how many police contracts it hold . )
The software ’s being first came to light indocumentsobtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation , whose limited adviser , Bennett Cyphers , called Fog Reveal “ a mass surveillance computer program on a budget . ” Records show the package can be had for as abject as $ 7,500 a class .
Fog Reveal is one of several services exploiting what some organic experts have amount to call a Fourth Amendment “ loophole . ” While a Supreme Courtopinion in 2018held that the government can not gain sensitive location data without a warranty , many government agencies have opt to interpret the ruling narrowly , applicable only to demands for such data . Because the Fourth Amendment does not regulate commercial-grade transaction , and no court has yet ruled on whether the legal opinion applies to the administration ’s power to simply purchase the same data point rather , a host of federal , United States Department of State , and local law enforcement agencies have begin literally buying their means around the need to obtain a warrant .
“ In a post - Roe v. Wade public , it ’s more important than ever to be highly aware of how dick like Fog Reveal may stage new threats as states across the country pass away increasingly draconian bill cut back people ’s access to miscarriage services and targeting masses seeking reproductive healthcare , ” Eshoo suppose .
“ The usage of Fog Reveal is also seemingly ill-sorted with protections against unlawful search and capture guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment , ” she continued . “ consumer do not actualise that they are potentially quash their Fourth Amendment rights when they download and use free apps on their telephone set . It would be hard to think consumers accept to this if really given the option , yet this is functionally what occurs . ”
Fog Data Science could not be straightaway reached for gossip . One of the company ’s pull off partner , Matthew Broderick , a former U.S. Marine brigadier superior general and elderly functionary at the Department of Homeland Security , told the Associated Press : “ Search warrant are not require for the use of the public data . ”
Broderick belong on to describe the company as fulfil a technological “ gap ” necessary “ at the front lines of traffic and missing individual cases , ” append that he was “ confident ” that law enforcement would use the Cartesian product responsibly and “ in accord with the laws in their respective jurisdiction . ”
Aside from a few ordinances passed in cities located largely along the West Coast , most jurisdictions have no applicable laws governing the use of commercial-grade surveillance technology . Only in a fistful of places , such asOaklandandSan Diego , are city loss leader even required to count the benefit of surveillance technical school ahead of its deployment .
What ’s more , abuse of constabulary database has been widely report across the body politic . In 2016 , the Associated Press unearthedhundreds of documented casesin which officers had been fire , suspend , or squeeze to free after access secret databases to garner info on “ amatory partners , business associates , neighbors , journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work . ”
An FTC spokesperson recognize receipt of Eshoo ’s letter of the alphabet , but they declined to comment further .
Last month , the agency initiate arulemaking processto address “ commercial surveillance and data security system , ” write that it had become “ interested that companies collect vast trove of consumer selective information , ” often through “ underground surveillance practices . ” The notice for this process broadly defines the topic , encompass virtually all forms of data point call for commercially . It remains unclear , however , how the federal agency will act on its findings , or whether it even currently believes new rule for data aggregation are necessary . And while the notice citation story of positioning data being purchased by the politics — namely , the military — its references to “ hole-and-corner ” location tracking do not specifically call out police enforcement partnership .
Jessica Rich , the former director of the FTC ’s consumer protection bureau , has joined others , meanwhile , inquestioningwhether the rulemaking is a “ serious effort , ” or merely an “ endeavor to push Congress to move forrard ” and pass on a comprehensive privacy bill known as the American Data Privacy and Prevention Act ( cover onin - depth by Gizmodo last month ) .
Notably , the limitation against the appeal or sale of data under that bill do not apply to any company working on behalf of the government , which includes federal , state , and local law enforcement . The transit of the American Data Privacy and Prevention Act ( ADPPA ) would do nothing to halt police force consumption of the Fog Reveal software .
Like the ADPPA , which is the first major privacy bill to be pass out of commission on Capitol Hill in two decade , other bank bill that would actually banish the practice of sell location data — such as the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act or the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act — have received no licit sustenance from bicameral leadership in Congress . The clock on the ADPPA itself is rapidly ticking by as we approach the election of a new House of Representatives in November .
On that issue , the New York Times reported three years ago that the U.S. was “ well-nigh the only developed land without a comprehensive consumer data point protection law and an sovereign federal agency to enforce it , ” adding , optimistically : “ But that could be change . ”
Yet virtually nothing has changed . Democrats and Republicans remain entrenched over competing idea of what a home privacy law should accomplish . age ofbackroom negotiatinghave helped pare their list of insurance disagreements down to a concluding vexing few , but the issues stay embody starkly clash visions of how a federal law of nature should work . For example : Should the government empower victim of privacy crimes to seek relief directly from the courts ? Or , conversely , should they be made to rely on the government itself to get justice on their behalf ? ( And finally , does it even matter ? )
In gain to aprivate right of action , country of dispute such aspreemption(a debate over whether federal jurisprudence should be a base upon which land can make new privateness rights , versus a ceiling , which would prevent them from doing so ) and collection to introduce a “ duty of loyalty ” ( obligating data aggregator to “ act in the best interests of people exposing their data ” ) stay major impediments in brokering a consensus between two sect of policymakers : those genuinely in chase of the strongest possible privateness rights , and those negotiating on behalf of corporations , whose bottom production line could be ache if force to prize them .
disregarding , neither side appears , at least at this time , concerned in tackling the job at hand — that law enforcement policeman around the country are being hand the incredible top executive to track the movement of ordinary Americans using tools that can fit on a cell , without even a wisp of supervising .
Crime preventionInternet privacyLina KhanPrivacySocial IssuesSurveillance
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