U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones

[Nan Yang]

U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones
Anomaly Six has ties to military, intelligence agencies and draws location data from more than 500 apps with hundreds of millions of users

How the U.S. Government Obtains and Uses Cellphone Location Data
The U.S. government is using app-generated marketing data based on the movements of millions of cellphones around the country for some forms of law enforcement. We explain how such data is being gathered and sold. Photo: Justin Lane/Shutterstock
By Byron Tau
Aug. 7, 2020 10:00 am ET

WASHINGTON—A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Anomaly Six LLC a Virginia-based company founded by two U.S. military veterans with a background in intelligence, said in marketing material it is able to draw location data from more than 500 mobile applications, in part through...

Source:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-go...small U.S. company,by The Wall Street Journal.

 

[atan651]

US will say the info is needed to protect its national security and therefore its all fine and dandy.

 

[Nan Yang]

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

C. Scott Brown / @c_scottbrown

• A new report exposes how a federal contractor secretly puts government tracking software into hundreds of mobile apps.
• The data gleaned from this tracking is then sold back to the US government for undisclosed purposes.
• This tactic is deceptive because the tracking isn’t disclosed. However, it appears to be totally legal.

A new report today from The Wall Street Journal exposes yet another concerning development when it comes to mobile phone tracking. According to the report, at least one federal contractor puts government tracking software in over 500 mobile applications.

The contractor — a Virginia-based company called Anomaly Six LLC — pays mobile developers to include its in-house tracking code within their apps. The trackers then collect anonymized data from our phones and Anomaly Six aggregates that data and sells it to the US government.

It sounds crazy, but it’s happening. What’s more, it appears it’s totally legal.

Government tracking: What you need to know
The report from The Wall Street Journal makes it clear that the tracking software from Anomaly Six appears in over 500 mobile applications. However, Anomaly Six would not disclose the apps with which it has partnerships. The WSJ was unable to glean this information through other methods.

One would assume you could dive into the terms of service agreements of popular apps and find references to Anomaly Six. That would be a waste of time, though, because app developers don’t need to disclose the Anomaly Six tracker to users. Therefore, you could have one or even dozens of apps with Anomaly Six’s government tracking code and you would have no idea.

• A new report exposes how a federal contractor secretly puts government tracking software into hundreds of mobile apps.
• The data gleaned from this tracking is then sold back to the US government for undisclosed purposes.
• This tactic is deceptive because the tracking isn’t disclosed. However, it appears to be totally legal.

A new report today from The Wall Street Journal exposes yet another concerning development when it comes to mobile phone tracking. According to the report, at least one federal contractor puts government tracking software in over 500 mobile applications.

The contractor — a Virginia-based company called Anomaly Six LLC — pays mobile developers to include its in-house tracking code within their apps. The trackers then collect anonymized data from our phones and Anomaly Six aggregates that data and sells it to the US government.

It sounds crazy, but it’s happening. What’s more, it appears it’s totally legal.

The tracking code used by this federal contractor does not need to be disclosed to the user by the app on which it's running.

To be clear, the data Anomaly Six collects is anonymized. Each smartphone is attached to an alphanumeric identifier that isn’t linked to the name of the phone’s owner. Of course, there are plenty of ways one could use “anonymous” data such as these to figure out who owns the device. For example, the device will likely be idle at night while the owner sleeps, and the device’s location at that time is likely the owner’s home. Once you have that info, it isn’t hard to start concluding other user habits, such as where they work, what they use to commute, where they go out to eat, etc.

Since Anomaly Six doesn’t disclose its government tracking software, there’s no way to opt-out. In brief: you are being tracked and your smartphone habits are being sold to the government and there’s nothing you can do about it.

How is this legal?
Since the idea of tracking location data via smartphones is still so new, laws and regulations related to the practice are behind the curve. Since the data Anomaly Six collects is technically anonymous and since it isn’t selling the data for commercial purposes — i.e. advertising or marketing — it’s fine to do this within the eyes of the law.

The big question, though, is what the government is doing with this data. Is it just keeping tabs on its citizens? Does it use it for law enforcement purposes? Is it using it as a counter-terrorism tactic? There are a lot of questions here, but Anomaly Six has no intention of answering them. According to the company, the business it conducts is considered confidential (although technically not classified), so it can’t elaborate on its business partners without their strict permission. Obviously, that permission isn’t likely to be easy to get.

 

[LeGenD]

Thread moved to appropriate section.

 

[Qmjd]

U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones
Anomaly Six has ties to military, intelligence agencies and draws location data from more than 500 apps with hundreds of millions of users

How the U.S. Government Obtains and Uses Cellphone Location Data
The U.S. government is using app-generated marketing data based on the movements of millions of cellphones around the country for some forms of law enforcement. We explain how such data is being gathered and sold. Photo: Justin Lane/Shutterstock
By Byron Tau
Aug. 7, 2020 10:00 am ET

WASHINGTON—A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Anomaly Six LLC a Virginia-based company founded by two U.S. military veterans with a background in intelligence, said in marketing material it is able to draw location data from more than 500 mobile applications, in part through...

Source:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-government-contractor-embedded-software-in-apps-to-track-phones-11596808801#:~:text=Byron Tau,-Biography&text=WASHINGTON—A small U.S. company,by The Wall Street Journal.

smartphones are smart spies.
camera for situational awareness.
mic for signal processing.
connectivity for data transfer.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

smartphones are smart spies.
camera for situational awareness.
mic for signal processing.
connectivity for data transfer.

Yep agree 100%, and so is the 4G/5G infrastructure which all that data without even spyware has to run through. That is why there is a big fuss about using foreign countries companies who now have the dreaded man-in-the-middle capabilities.

 

[jamahir]

Western governments spoke a lot against the supposed intelligence gathering and file keeping in East Germany, but from many years these same Western governments are doing the same.

 

[Qmjd]

Yep agree 100%, and so is the 4G/5G infrastructure which all that data without even spyware has to run through. That is why there is a big fuss about using foreign countries companies who now have the dreaded man-in-the-middle capabilities.

now americans are saying to china: please don`t use our citizen data

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

now americans are saying to china: please don`t use our citizen data

Well now you can easily see why apps are dangerous. Some company selling little companies advertisement tracking software for money and they in turn get data back and build databases on all their users.

Plus notice all the google-analytics stuff loading in PDF pages...