LocationSmart

2018: The American operators secretly sell data on location of subscribers

In May, 2018 it became known that four largest operators of the USA secretly sell data on location of their subscribers in real time of other company. Everything began with requirements of one of senators to learn why the Securus company through the intermediary of LocationSmart can trace any phone "within several seconds" using the data obtained from the main operators, including AT&T, by Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

So far it is known little of how LocationSmart obtained data on location of millions of Americans as required consent was received from subscribers and who else has data access.

LocationSmart service

The director of Institute of open technologies of New America Kevin Bankston (Kevin Bankston) explained that Electronic Communications Privacy Act does not allow telecommunication companies to open data of users to the government. However it does not limit disclosure of information to other companies which then can transfer them to the government. Bankston called this hole "one of the biggest spaces in the legislation of the USA on confidentiality".

The Californian technology company LocationSmart is one of the few aggregators of data. They claim that they have "direct connection" with operators that allows to obtain data on location of the cell phone in real time – a method less exact, than GPS, but fast and not such energy-intensive. Though theoretically the company needs the consent of the user to use of similar data, it is put automatically in a request form – so, according to the company, calling the taxi, the user "wishes to be detected" and agrees to tracking of the location.

The company covers 95% of the USA thanks to communications with US Cellular, Virgin, Boost and MetroPCS and also with the Canadian operators, such as Bell, Rogers and Telus. Then other companies buy the LocationSmart data access. However representatives of the company refused to answer about the provided guarantees and confidential data protection of users.^[1]

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