From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   FBI Once Bought Mobile-Phone Data for Warrantless Tracking. Other Agencies   
   Still Do.   
   By Byron Tau, March 10, 2023, WSJ   
      
   WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation this week acknowledged having   
   bought precise geolocation data derived from mobile-phone advertising in the   
   past before backing away from the practice in the face of thorny legal issues   
   and public    
   controversy.    
      
   The precise location of millions of mobile devices and automobiles is   
   increasingly available for sale by commercial vendors, sometimes offering a   
   nearly real-time look at how a phone or vehicle moves around the world.   
   Several government agencies,    
   including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have bought access to this   
   kind of commercial information such as the geolocation of phones without court   
   authorization, something the FBI says it no longer does.    
      
   The different tacks underscore the difficulties of applying established legal   
   standards and internal procedures to a new world awash in data.     
      
   In an appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on   
   Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the nation’s top federal   
   law-enforcement agency now seeks court orders when obtaining phone data from   
   commercial vendors. Such data can    
   often reveal detailed information on the movement and behavior of individuals.   
      
   “We do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes   
   location data derived from internet advertising. I understand that we   
   previously—as in the past—purchased some such information for a specific   
   national-security pilot    
   project. But that’s not been active for some time,” Mr. Wray said in   
   response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.).   
      
   Several years ago, a branch of the U.S. military called the Joint Special   
   Operations Command created a program designed to take advantage of modern   
   digital-advertising networks, aimed largely at tracking terrorists overseas,   
   people familiar with the    
   matter said. For a short time, the FBI participated in the military-led   
   effort, one of those people said, testing the data’s usefulness in some   
   domestic matters, including the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and a 2018   
   missing-person case, before    
   pulling out.    
      
   The FBI also purchased a license to a commercial service called Venntel, which   
   allows phone tracking through advertising data, before letting the contract   
   lapse in 2021, according to federal spending records. When the FBI put out a   
   request for proposal    
   last year for a vendor to help monitor social-media chatter, it told bidders   
   that no location-based data feeds should be included in any product sold to   
   the bureau.    
      
   U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees JSOC, declined to comment. The   
   FBI declined to comment beyond Mr. Wray’s remarks. The Department of   
   Homeland Security and its components, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and   
   Immigration and Customs    
   Enforcement, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.   
      
   CBP acknowledged in 2020 buying access to Venntel’s data but said in a   
   statement at the time: “It is important to note that such information   
   doesn’t include cellular phone-tower data, is not ingested in bulk and   
   doesn’t include the individual    
   user’s identity.”    
      
   In the years since the JSOC-led effort, the use of commercially purchased   
   advertising data for tracking has trickled down from the military to federal,   
   state and local police forces in some cases. Such agencies are increasingly   
   accessing bulk data sets    
   from commercial vendors to acquire information, usually without court   
   authorization.    
      
   Civil liberties groups and privacy activists have been sharply critical of   
   such government purchases.   
      
   “FBI Director Wray’s admission that the FBI secretly purchased   
   Americans’ location data ‘derived from internet advertising’ is both   
   shocking and further proof of the need for Congress to take immediate action   
   to rein in mass surveillance,”    
   said Sean Vitka of Demand Progress, a group that advocates online privacy and   
   digital rights. “We should have the right to decide when and how our   
   personal information is shared.”    
      
   The commercial availability of such data raises new questions for government   
   agencies. A warrant is required to track a phone through the cell networks or   
   install a GPS tracking device on a car, the Supreme Court has ruled. To obtain   
   such a warrant,    
   police need to show probable cause of a crime.   
      
   But the sheer amount of data now available for sale offers a broad avenue to   
   acquiring personal data from phones or cars without a warrant by paying for   
   it, raising new legal questions about how and when the government should be   
   permitted to buy it,    
   especially as it relates to domestic criminal investigations.   
      
   Phone apps and digital display advertising networks often collect geolocation   
   data from phones and resell it through data brokers, who can also collect   
   internet protocol (IP) addresses as consumers browse the web, pinpointing a   
   user to a specific    
   location.    
      
   In-car vehicle-security or infotainment systems also collect and sell vehicle   
   locations, and governments and private sector companies alike are amassing   
   large databases of license plate scans as motorists use public roadways.    
      
   Personal information such as names and phone numbers are stripped from such   
   data sets but a person’s movement through the world is highly unique.   
   Information such as where a car parks at night or where a phone is located in   
   the evening can be cross-   
   referenced against other data sources that include names, address histories   
   and property-ownership records to link a device or vehicle to an individual or   
   family.   
      
   Numerous FBI field offices and other arms of the bureau have in the past   
   accessed commercially available data without court authorization, according to   
   people familiar with the matter. Sometimes, agents would request the voluntary   
   cooperation of    
   companies that had access to data, people said. Other times, they would buy   
   software licenses or subscriptions that would let them query commercial data   
   sets, they said.    
      
      
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