U.S. Military Disables Ad Trackers
PHOTO CAPTION: U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Riley P. Greenwald seals his cell phone and smartwatch in an envelope before a land-navigation event at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, April 9, 2021. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Lisa Litchfield)
The U.S. military has disabled advertising trackers on a range of government phones and computers after officials received reports that commercially available location data was being used to target or surveil American forces in the Middle East.
The changes affect advertising identifiers built into devices and operating systems. Those identifiers can allow advertisers and data brokers to connect activity across apps and, when combined with location information, help reveal where a device has been and patterns in its owner's movements.
The Air Force told Sen. Ron Wyden that it disabled advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones about two months ago. U.S. Special Operations Command said it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices, while the Army said advertising IDs on its mobile devices have been disabled by default since at least February.
The Army said advertising identifiers had already been blocked on its Windows computers since before 2021. Similar letters from the Army and Navy confirmed that advertising IDs had been disabled on military devices, although they did not provide complete timelines for when every restriction took effect.
The changes follow warnings that commercial location data has become a force-protection problem. U.S. Central Command told Congress in April that it had received multiple threat reports involving adversaries exploiting commercially available location information to target or surveil U.S. personnel during operations in the Middle East.
Commercial data can potentially reveal where troops gather and establish patterns of life around military personnel. Lawmakers have warned that adversaries could use that information for surveillance or to assist attacks involving missiles, drones or roadside bombs.
Mobile Advertising IDs, often called MAIDs, are unique identifiers associated with individual devices. Advertising companies use them to track activity for targeted advertising, while data brokers can collect and resell information connected to those identifiers.
Wyden and Rep. Pat Harrigan have pressed the Pentagon to strengthen protections against that data being collected and sold. The two lawmakers sent another letter Friday requesting an investigation into whether the military has adequately addressed the threat.
The effort goes beyond advertising IDs. Military officials have also considered tighter restrictions on smartphones in deployed environments amid concerns that information generated or posted by personnel could help adversaries locate American forces.
Disabling the identifiers should reduce one source of commercially available location data, but privacy specialists caution that it does not eliminate every way a device can potentially be tracked.
The Pentagon said it would respond directly to lawmakers regarding their latest concerns.
Source: Reuters
