How smartphone advertising data is being used to spy on you
Image: @chrisyangchrisfilm via Unsplash
An investigation by Le Monde has revealed the extent to which private security companies are increasingly marketing products to intelligence and law enforcement agencies that use advertising data collected from mobile phones to spy on people.
The French daily found that at least 15 companies are currently offering services in advertising intelligence (Adint), including in the EU, where privacy laws prohibit personal data collected for advertising to be used for any other purpose without consent. Using geolocation data collected by ordinary apps on smartphones that is resold online, Adint promises to track surveillance targets to within metres in almost real time.
Most of the companies identified are located in Israel and were founded by former members of intelligence agencies or the military. Some are based in Europe or the US. One of the companies, Wave Guard Technologies, uses the slogan: “Any device, anytime, anywhere.” At confidential presentations attended by Le Monde , the companies offered customers the ability to de-anonymise advertising data that was supposed to remain anonymous, allowing them to cross reference information with other datasets sold or leaked online. One sales agent boasted of collecting data from every country in the world up to 2019.
The lucrative market for Adint tools has grown in recent years, especially in the US, where it is employed by dozens of government agencies. Last year Forbes reported that the US immigration agency, ICE, had bought an Adint tool for US$5 million from Cobwebs, a company founded by former members of Israel’s cyber intelligence agencies. A few years earlier, Meta had banned Cobwebs from collecting data on its platforms after security staff found it was spying on activists, opposition members and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico.
These companies have been exploiting less stringent regulations than those governing surveillance tools such as spyware, arguing that the data is commercially available and that users give consent when they agree to terms of use of applications that collect geolocation data. However, concerns have been raised in the past that some Israeli Adint companies have started distributing malicious adverts to instal spyware on smartphones.
