Data company sued by US government amid fears of sensitive location tracking
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday sued Idaho-based data broker Kochava for selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to track consumers.
The FTC said consumer data could be used to trace people’s movements to and from sensitive locations including “reproductive health clinics, places of worship, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and addiction recovery facilities”.
The problem gained interest after a supreme court ruling in June overturned the Roe v Wade decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion. Since then, privacy advocates and the public have called for more limits to the data tech companies collect over concerns that police or other entities could access customers’ search history, geolocation and other information revealing pregnancy plans.
But the lawsuit, which seeks to halt Kochava’s sale of sensitive geolocation data and require the company to delete the sensitive geolocation information it has collected, addresses issues beyond tracking those pursuing abortion care. In the suit, FTC alleges the company allows people to customize their data feed to filter for mobile devices at specific times and locations. This would make it easy to track a user over time or try to, for instance, find out where they live.
“For example, the location of a mobile device at night likely corresponds to the consumer’s home address,” the suit said. “Public or other records may identify the name of the owner or resident of a particular address.”
In fact, the company advertises “Household Mapping” as one of the ways to use its data.
Until recently, the company also made its data available for purchase by the public and “allowed anyone with little effort to
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