HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BUYS OUR CELL PHONE LOCATION DATAPART VII
Published: June 14, 2022
SOURCE: ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Congress must ban federal government purchase of sensitive location information. The issue is straightforward: government agencies should not be able to buy any personal data that normally requires a warrant.
But legislatures should not stop there. Personal data is only available to government because it’s already amassed on the private market. We need to regulate the collection and sale of personal data by requiring meaningful consent. And we should ban online behavioral advertising, the industry which built many of the tracking technologies that enable this kind of mass surveillance.
The developers of mobile operating systems also have power to shut down this insidious data market. For years, both Apple and Google have explicitly supported third-party tracking with technology like the advertising identifier. They must reverse course. They also must crack down on alternative methods of tracking like fingerprinting, which will make it much more difficult for brokers to track users. Furthermore, OS developers should require apps to disclose which SDKs they pack into their apps and whom they share particular kinds of data with. Both Apple and Google have made strides towards data-sharing transparency, giving users a better idea of how particular apps access sensitive permissions. However, users remain almost entirely in the dark about how each app may share and sell their data.
Fortunately, you can also take steps towards preventing your location data from winding up in the hands of data brokers and the federal government. As a first step, you can disable your advertising identifier. This removes the most ubiquitous tool that data brokers use to link data from different sources to your device. You can also look at the apps on your phone and turn off any unnecessary permissions granted to third-party apps. Data brokers often obtain information via apps, and any app with location permission is a potential vector. Revoke permissions that apps do not absolutely need, especially location access, and uninstall apps that you do not trust.
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