- Jan 8, 2011
- 22,361
The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard has learned. The most popular app among a group Motherboard analyzed connected to this sort of data sale is a Muslim prayer and Quran app that has more than 98 million downloads worldwide. Others include a Muslim dating app, a popular Craigslist app, an app for following storms, and a "level" app that can be used to help, for example, install shelves in a bedroom.
Through public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis, Motherboard uncovered two separate, parallel data streams that the U.S. military uses, or has used, to obtain location data. One relies on a company called Babel Street, which creates a product called Locate X. U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military tasked with counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance, bought access to Locate X to assist on overseas special forces operations. The other stream is through a company called X-Mode, which obtains location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military.
Muslim Pro, a Muslim prayer and Quran app with over 98 million downloads, has said it will no longer share user data with X-Mode, a location data firm that has sold information to, among other clients, defense contractors and ultimately the U.S. military. A Motherboard investigation found Muslim Pro was sending granular location data to X-Mode.
Source(s):
1. How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps
2. Muslim Pro Stops Sharing Location Data After Motherboard Investigation