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Cell Phone Carriers Are Secretly Selling Your Real-Time Location Data

May 15, 2018

Cell Phone Carriers Are Secretly Selling Your Real-Time Location Data

Four of the country’s largest cellular providers have been selling your real-time location information, allowing a Texas-based prison technology company, Securus, to track any phone “within seconds,” without a warrant.  The system uses data sold by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and other carriers – who provide it through an intermediary called LocationSmart.

The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds. It does this by going through a system typically used by marketers and other companies to get location data from major cellphone carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, documents show. –New York Times

Last week Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to the FCC demanding an investigation into Securus, after the New York Times revealed that former Mississippi County sheriff Cory Hutcheson used the service almost a dozen time to track the phones of other officers, and even targeted a judge.

Between 2014 and 2017, the sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used the service at least 11 times, prosecutors said. His alleged targets included a judge and members of the State Highway Patrol. Mr. Hutcheson, who was dismissed last year in an unrelated matter, has pleaded not guilty in the surveillance cases. –NYT

Hutcheson has pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawful surveillance.

How did this happen?

How is it that LocationSmart obtained real time location data on millions of Americans? Moreover, who else has access to that information?

Kevin Blankston, director of New America’s Open Technology Institute told ZDNet in a phone call that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It does not restrict carriers from disclosing information to other companies – a loophole Blankston calls “one of the biggest gaps in US privacy law.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

5 Things You Should Know About the FCC’s Proposed Privacy Rules

March 15, 2016

5 Things You Should Know About the FCC’s Proposed Privacy Rules

It stops Verizon’s zombie cookie in its tracks, but allows AT&T to keep charging customers extra if they want privacy.

Federal Communications Commisison Chairman Tom Wheeler testifies at a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in March 2015. (Lauren Victoria Burke/AP Photo)

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission proposed new privacy rules for Internet providers. The proposal was immediately praised by privacy advocates as “a major step forward” and lambasted by AT&T as an effort to place a “thumb on the scale in favor of Internet companies.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler stopped by our offices to explain the proposal, which will be voted on by the commission later this year after a period of public comment. Here is what you need to know about the proposed rules.

  1. The new rules would prohibit Internet providers from sharing information with third parties about a customer’s name, address, location and Internet activity, unless they have opted in to having their data shared.

    It is meant to provide the same level of privacy protection to Internet customers’ data that companies must, by law, apply to telephone customers’ data.

  2. The rules also broaden the types of data that are protected, Wheeler said. The old rules for telephone operators covered “Customer Proprietary Network Information” – such as the duration and frequency of calls placed by customers and where they were placed from.

    Wheeler said the proposal includes Internet activities tied to a unique identifying number rather than a person’s actual name or phone number. Under the proposed rules, Internet providers could not, without consent, track customers using a unique number tied to a customer’s Internet activity or phone location.

    …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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