FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

Most people I've spoken with are either thinking "Apple/Google/Government would never allow apps to do something like that!" or they think "Everyone is already doing it so why bother trying to fight it. I'd only be inconveniencing myself for nothing"

As if I had a choice.

As if politicians of any party care now, in a meaningful way.

As if news orgs were ever interested in security experts who sounded the klaxons (for years and years and years).

[1] https://quickthoughts.ca/autotracko/ [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/targeted-advertising-g...

If Google & Apple & friends refused to take a rake and opened distribution, then I'd agree, net neutrality etc, not their problem

But they own so much, and so deep into the pipeline, and explain their fees to courts because "security"... and then don't do investigations. They employ some of the best security analysts in the world and have $10-30B/yr revenue tied to just the app store fees, so they very much can take a big bite out of this if they wanted.

There's no need to ban ad supported apps when you can just ban the practice of using ads targeting users based on individual characteristics.

However, I'd be shocked if a cursory audit comparing SDKs embedded in apps and disclosed data sales showed they were effectively enforcing anything at all.

Yes, I absolutely would. Advertisements are a scourge upon people's wellbeing on top of being ugly and intrusive.

If you want to build a free product, that's great. Build a free product.

If you want to make money from your product, then charge for your product.

Maybe one clear example is needing a permission once for setup and then it remaining persistent.

An easy demonstration is just looking at what Graphene has done. It's open source and you wana say Google can't protect their users better? Certainly Graphene has some advanced features but not everything can be dismissed so easily. Besides, just throw advanced features behind a hidden menu (which they already have!). There's no reason you can't many most users happy while also catering to power users (they'll always complain, but that's their job)

https://grapheneos.org/features

Apple does not let you restrict app network access[1]

You have no ability to know who your app is connecting to, and you cannot select or prevent it.

[1] except maybe the cellular data toggle

Read the TOS.

If I was simultaneously also the owner of the ad platform, I'd fix it & knock out the bad players, or get ready to be sued for a decade+ of knowing malpractice

And if I was a US citizen seeing the companies being involved be sued for being monopolies and abusing their position, and then seeing them cry security in court yet knowingly do this for a decade+, I'd feel frustrated by successive left + right US administrations & voters

The interesting part is Google & Apple, as part of explaining to courts why their large app store fees are legit and not proof of monopoly positions, hid behind the security argument that they need to be the clearing house of what software runs on the devices. Except... they've knowingly punted on this one for 10+ years.

I would 100% agree that losing privacy through any utility-level carrier (credit cards, phone, OS provider, etc) should be default disallowed, and any opt-ins have a clear transparency mode with easy opt-out. At least two areas the US can learn from the EU on digital policy is digital marketplaces and consumer privacy protection, and this topic is at the intersection of both.

In theory we should have to power to vote out those lawmakers and elect new ones who will pass the laws we want enacted and uphold the constitution. If we no longer have that power the founding fathers were pretty open about what was expected from us, but it isn't pretty.

Additionally, the decision was narrow, applying specifically to historical CSLI.

The issue of buying location data from a 3rd party company as part of a service has not been argued.

> the FBI has confirmed it was buying access to people’s data collected from data brokers, who source much of their information — including location data — from ordinary consumer phone apps and games

This is completely different from CSLI, you are agreeing to provide your location to these apps and games, as most require it, and, finally, a majority of these EULA state that the data may be shared with 3rd parties.

SCOTUS makes narrow rulings all the time and this is one of them.

The argument that you are expressly providing your location information and agreeing that it can/will be shared with a 3rd party who can then do as they please with your data is not a violation of the 4th amendment and will be excluded from the 3rd party doctrine.

Many people won’t agree with this, and if ever argued in a court, they won’t agree with the ruling when it’s allowed to continue.

If you consented, no warrant would be required.

When this goes back to the courts you can come back to this comment and still be angry you are wrong.

You're saying organized crime is new? Or videos of it?

Sure, you can get a burner, but you have to make sure you never use it anywhere near anyone you know, that the sim is obtained anonymously, that you're never imaged by any of the ubiquitous cameras, etc. Merely having it powered on provides enough metadata to establish a shadow profile, and it's nearly impossible for a person to secure two separate identities. There's also the superman problem - the burner phone would only ever appear when anonymars is missing, and vice versa, creating a real and exploitable pattern if anyone like the FBI wanted to root around in your life. All they'd have to do is query which shadow profiles match the temporal gaps correlated with your disappearance from tracking.

There's really no escaping it. The only fix is legislation - outright banning mass surveillance, with lethal corporate penalties and long prison terms for C-Suite responsible for violations. Short of that, we live in a world that is implicitly compromised and insecure unless you have nation state level resources.

Then again, what I _really_ want is for the FBI to prevent crime. If their only solution is to let crime happen and then use a giant dragnet to put people in jail then they are less than worthless... they are actively dangerous to democracy.

And by doing this they stop a terror attack?

Fuck off. This is just trying to manipulate people with fear of undefined bad thing.

What if we could torture someone to have a chance at stopping a terror attack? What if we could torture someone to find where they stashed a stolen car? What if publicizing the errant torture of innocent people is bad for public morale, so we outlaw publishing stories about it?

When does it stop?

These are basic philosophy of law questions but I tend to stand on the side of liberty from an ever more powerful government.

Now, again, I don't necessarily agree with that position: many companies here are monopolies, or their market has so little competition that all their competitors do it as well. Also, with no downside to it, I don't see why a company isn't going to sell their customers' data, and if not them, then some company that might acquire them down the road. Futher, some companies even just outright lie to customers about this.

But again, the current government is unwilling to enforce any sort of extant consumer protection law, and much of the above boils down to "… because America has no privacy laws." So, we're back to "if you want it, vote for it". The GOP is fundamentally opposed to regulation of business, but even the Democrats have been really tepid around privacy laws and consumer protection.