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Srsly Risky Biz: It Is Time to Ban Sale of Precise Geolocation

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Srsly Risky Biz: It Is Time to Ban Sale of Precise Geolocation

Citizen Lab released a report documenting Webloc, a geolocation data platform sold by Penlink that claims access to records from up to 500 million mobile devices globally, including location coordinates and device identifiers sourced from mobile apps and advertising networks. The analysis raises concerns about national security and privacy risks from the widespread commercial availability of precise geolocation data in the United States. Security researchers argue that stronger regulatory controls are needed to restrict collection and sale of such data.

Why it matters: Security practitioners and policy stakeholders should understand how commercial surveillance infrastructure exposes location data at scale; this affects privacy controls across mobile ecosystems and informs threat modeling for adversary intelligence gathering capabilities.

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