How Your Phone is Tracking You Through Ads Without Your Knowledge

A lawsuit against Babel Street reveals how Google and Apple’s mobile data is being exploited to track users, highlighting the growing threat to personal privacy.

A lawsuit filed by Atlas Data Privacy Corp. has raised serious concerns about how commercial tools like LocateX, developed by Babel Street, enable near-unrestricted tracking of mobile devices. According to the suit, anyone with basic credentials can gain access to sensitive location data through this platform, which uses information collected by mobile apps and advertising networks. This lawsuit has triggered an outcry over privacy, especially concerning how easily the data can be exploited without stringent safeguards.

Atlas discovered this while testing the tool through a free trial, which their investigator accessed by claiming interest in government contracting work. With just a few clicks, the platform allowed Atlas to map out and track the location of specific mobile devices in real time. The tool, which functions similarly to a map interface, enables users to mark areas like residential homes or even abortion clinics, tracking the movement of devices in those zones. For law enforcement or malicious actors, such a tool presents a way to monitor individuals without legal barriers.

How Location Data is Bought and Sold

The Mobile Advertising ID (MAID) is a unique identifier generated for every mobile device by Google and Apple, designed to support advertising while preserving user anonymity. While this ID doesn’t directly reveal personal data, it is closely tied to individuals’ movements and behaviors, making it highly valuable to advertisers—and now, to surveillance platforms like LocateX.

Data collected from mobile apps and websites is packaged as part of a practice known as bidstream data. Bidstream data is sent to ad networks when a mobile user accesses a web page or an app with advertising, revealing details like their location in real time. While intended for personalized advertising, this information can be sold by data brokers, making it accessible to anyone willing to pay for it. LocateX leverages this data to provide detailed movement histories, allowing users to trace a person’s travel over days or weeks.

This ease of access and the lack of oversight have prompted concerns over how location data, originally collected for advertising purposes, is repurposed in ways that violate privacy norms. Atlas claims that the companies selling this data are failing to enforce protections, such as those outlined in New Jersey’s Daniel’s Law, which safeguards the personal data of law enforcement officers and their families.

Tracking Law Enforcement: A Breach of Safety

Among the alarming findings of the Atlas investigation is that law enforcement officers are just as vulnerable to this form of tracking as any other private citizen. The lawsuit highlights a case in which a New Jersey police officer’s movements were monitored after an incident involving a social media personality went viral. The officer and his family received threatening messages after their home address was revealed through online searches. Atlas showed that Babel Street’s software could track the officer’s phone using location data harvested from mobile apps, a breach that law enforcement representatives found deeply troubling.

One concerning feature of LocateX is its ability to track users through sensitive areas like courtrooms, synagogues, or mosques. By setting up a geofence—a virtual boundary around a location—the software tracks any device entering or leaving the area. This means that even if a person uses location services for routine app functionality, their presence can be monitored and recorded in areas where they expect privacy, such as jury parking lots or private residences.

Easy Access to Geolocation Data

The market for geolocation data has boomed due to its availability through everyday apps. Whenever a person uses an app like Google Maps or a weather app, they may unknowingly be sharing their location with third-party data brokers. This information is collected under the premise of improving user experience but is often sold to companies without clear user consent.

Although companies like Apple have made efforts to curb this practice through features like App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which requires explicit user permission to track their location, the lawsuit claims that the protections are not foolproof. Google’s Android platform, which has a larger global user base, is even more exposed, with many users unaware of the data their devices are sharing.

By exploiting bidstream data, tools like LocateX offer the ability to track users in real time, providing an alarming level of detail about their daily lives. While some data brokers claim to anonymize this data, Atlas’s investigation suggests that connecting this data to individual identities is relatively easy.

Legal and Ethical Ramifications

Atlas’s lawsuit against Babel Street not only underscores the privacy risks posed by mobile tracking tools but also highlights the inadequacy of existing privacy laws. The lack of clear regulation around how data is collected, stored, and used by companies like Babel Street has led to the widespread availability of surveillance tools that could be used by both law enforcement and malicious actors alike.

The implications are particularly concerning in sensitive cases such as tracking individuals visiting abortion clinics in states with strict reproductive laws. Atlas showed that LocateX could be used to follow a person’s device across state lines to a clinic, raising the potential for this data to be used in criminal investigations without proper oversight.

Last Updated on November 7, 2024 2:22 pm CET

Markus Kasanmascheff
Markus Kasanmascheff
Markus has been covering the tech industry for more than 15 years. He is holding a Master´s degree in International Economics and is the founder and managing editor of Winbuzzer.com.

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