The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reportedly admitted for the first time that it bought American location data rather than getting a warrant.
The FBI had not previously acknowledged ever buying people's location data, despite the practice becoming more widespread since the US Supreme Court restricted the government's ability to track citizens' phones without a warrant nearly five years ago, according to Wired.
Five of the nation's intelligence officials were present for the Wednesday disclosure, which took place during a session on global threats held by the US Senate. Democratic senator from Oregon Ron Wyden questioned Christopher Wray on the FBI's use of commercial data, asking, "Does the FBI purchase American phone-geolocation information?" Wray claimed that although his organisation wasn't doing it right now, it had in the past. He also only addressed information that businesses had collected explicitly for advertising.
“To my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising,” Wray said. “I understand that we previously — as in the past — purchased some such information for a specific national security pilot project. But that’s not been active for some time.” Wired also said in its report that Wray claims that the bureau now relies on a “court-authorised process” to obtain location data from companies.
It's unclear at this time if Wray was referring to a warrant, which is an order signed by a judge who is firmly convinced that a crime has been committed, or another legal tool. Wray also didn't explain why the FBI decided to stop the practice.
The US Supreme Court ruled in a case earlier that when government organisations accessed historical location data without a warrant, they were in violation of unjustified searches. But the decision was interpreted very strictly. Privacy groups claim that the judgement left an obvious gap that enables the government to just buy anything it is unable to legally obtain. The Military Intelligence Agency and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are two federal organisations that are known to have exploited this weakness, as per Wired.
“The Department of Homeland Security, for one, is reported to have purchased the geolocations of millions of Americans from private marketing firms. In that instance, the data were derived from a range of deceivingly benign sources, such as mobile games and weather apps. Beyond the federal government, state and local authorities have been known to acquire software that feeds off cellphone-tracking data,” the report said.
When asked if the FBI will resume buying location data during the Senate hearing, Wray responded, "We have no plans to change that, at the current time.”
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