Security News

FTC secures first databroker settlement banning sale of sensitive location data
2024-01-15 15:34

Infosec in brief The US Federal Trade Commission has secured its first data broker settlement agreement, prohibiting X-Mode Social from sharing or selling sensitive location data. In its complaint, the FTC accused X-Mode, which sold its assets to successor firm Outlogic in 2021, of selling raw non-anonymized location data collected through its own apps and an SDK for embedding in third-party applications.

FTC Bans Outlogic (X-Mode) From Selling Sensitive Location Data
2024-01-10 08:47

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday prohibited data broker Outlogic, which was previously known as X-Mode Social, from sharing or selling any sensitive location data with...

FTC bans data broker from selling Americans’ location data
2024-01-09 20:32

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission banned data broker Outlogic, formerly X-Mode Social, from selling Americans' raw location data that could be used for tracking purposes. Under the order released today, the first time data brokers were barred from sharing and selling users' sensitive location data, Outlogic must now delete all unlawfully collected sensitive location data, including any models or algorithms derived from this data.

Google Stops Collecting Location Data from Maps
2023-12-26 12:03

Google Maps now stores location data locally on your device, meaning that Google no longer has that data to turn over to the police.

Toyota: Car location data of 2 million customers exposed for ten years
2023-05-12 14:50

Toyota Motor Corporation disclosed a data breach on its cloud environment that exposed the car-location information of 2,150,000 customers for ten years, between November 6, 2013, and April 17, 2023. While there is no evidence that the data was misused, unauthorized users could have accessed the historical data and possibly the real-time location of 2.15 million Toyota cars.

Identifying People Using Cell Phone Location Data
2023-01-09 12:14

" I don't even think turning your cell phone off would help in this instance. Oh and do not think that "Turning the phone off" actually works, it does not, the phone remains powered up but supposadly in some quiescent mode.

Revealed: US telcos admit to storing, handing over location data
2022-09-02 17:15

US mobile carriers know a lot about where their customers are located, and according to letters sent to the Federal Communications Commission, they routinely store such data for years, willingly hand it over to law enforcement if served a proper subpoena, and say users can't opt out. News that cellular carriers are storing sensitive location data isn't surprising given previous actions taken against AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile US and Sprint by the FCC in 2020 for selling location data to third parties.

FTC Sues Data Broker Over Selling Location Data for Hundreds of Millions of Phones
2022-08-30 03:35

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday said it filed a lawsuit against Kochava, a location data broker, for collecting and selling precise geolocation data gathered from consumers' mobile devices. The complaint alleges that the U.S. company amasses a "Wealth of information" about users by purchasing data from other data brokers to sell to its own clients.

Google fined $60 million over Android location data collection
2022-08-13 15:08

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced that Google was fined $60 million for misleading Australian Android users regarding the collection and use of their location data for almost two years, between January 2017 and December 2018. "Google, one of the world's largest companies, was able to keep the location data collected through the 'Web & App Activity' setting and that retained data could be used by Google to target ads to some consumers, even if those consumers had the"Location History" setting turned off," said ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

The weaponizing of smartphone location data on the battlefield
2022-07-13 04:00

How each side collects the adversary's smartphone location data and shields their own can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Because mobile app location data is often sold to commercial data brokers and then repackaged and sold to individual customers, a country can access such a database and then pick out the phones likely belonging to soldiers.