The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here's What We Need to Do.

CBP has officially acknowledged using location data sourced from the real-time bidding (RTB) ad ecosystem to warrantlessly track people's movements, confirming long-standing concerns about ad tech enabling government surveillance. RTB auctions broadcast sensitive personal data—including GPS coordinates and advertising IDs—to thousands of companies per day, allowing data brokers like Venntel and Gravy Analytics to harvest and resell it to law enforcement. Individuals can protect themselves by disabling mobile advertising IDs and limiting app location permissions. Tech companies should remove precise location data from bid requests and disable advertising IDs by default. Lawmakers need federal privacy legislation, a ban on behavioral ad targeting, and closure of the 'data broker loophole' that lets agencies buy data they'd otherwise need a warrant to obtain.