US Government Purchases Phone Location Data for Immigration Enforcement
| US Government Purchases Phone Location Data for Immigration Enforcement | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | Federal Agencies Use a Large Database with Location Information |
| Location | United States |
| Date | early 2020 |
| Solove Harm | Aggregation, Surveillance, Secondary Use |
| Information | Location, Contact, Computer Device |
| Threat Actors | US government, Apps collecting location data |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Smartphone owners in the United States |
| High Risk Groups | |
| Tangible Harms | |
In early 2020 the US government was found to have bought access to a commercial database of location information from millions of cellphones in America.
Description
At the beginning of 2020 Trump administration appeared to be using a commercial database that maps location data of millions of people.
Several privacy violations can be identified here.
The database is an example of Aggregation. It is reported to be potentially the largest location database in history. It includes location information of 12 million people as they moved through several major cities in the US, including Washington, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Smartphone tracking is an example of Surveillance. This data allows the government (or anyone else who has access to the database) to map movements of phone owners.
The location data in the database is drawn from smartphone apps including those for games, weather, e-commerce, for which the user has granted permission to log the phone’s location. Sharing the location data with the US government, who are using it for immigration and border enforcement, can be interpreted as Secondary Use.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/dhs-cell-phone-tracking.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-agencies-use-cellphone-location-data-for-immigration-enforcement-11581078600?mod=hp_lead_pos5
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html