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Senators Call On FCC To Investigate Carriers Selling Location Data To Bounty Hunters (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the time-to-act-is-now dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Tuesday, Motherboard revealed that major American telcos T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint are selling customer location data of users in an unregulated market that trickles down to bounty hunters and people not authorized to handle such information. In our investigation, we purchased the real-time location of a cell phone from a bail industry source for $300, pinpointing it to a specific part of Queens, New York. The issue potentially impacts hundreds of millions of cell phone users in the United States, with customers likely unaware that their location data is being sold and resold through multiple companies, with even the telcos sometimes having little idea where it ends up and how it is used.

Now, Senators and a commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have urged government bodies to investigate, with some calling for regulation that would ensure customers are properly made aware of how their data is being sold. "The American people have an absolute right to the privacy of their data, which is why I'm extraordinarily troubled by reports of this system of repackaging and reselling location data to unregulated third party services for potentially nefarious purposes. If true, this practice represents a legitimate threat to our personal and national security," Senator Kamala Harris told Motherboard in a statement. Harris explicitly called on the FCC to investigate the issue. "The FCC needs to immediately investigate these serious security concerns and take the necessary steps to protect the privacy of American consumers," she said. On Tuesday, FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted: "The FCC needs to investigate. Stat."

"It shouldn't be that you pay a few hundred dollars to a bounty hunter and then they can tell you in real time where a phone is within a few hundred meters. That's not right. This entire ecosystem needs some oversight," she added on MSNBC's Velshi & Ruhle show on Wednesday. "I think we've got to get to this fast."

Senators Mark Warner and Ron Wyden are also calling on the FCC to act.

60 comments

  1. yeah..... by WolfgangVL · · Score: 2

    Not authorized. That's rich. How 'bout my 3 friends, Benjamin, Benny, and Ben? They authorized?

    --
    You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
    1. Re: yeah..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh that. Thats some green money alright!

    2. Re:yeah..... by ls671 · · Score: 3

      Poor senators anyway, authorized or not, this has been available on the Internet for ages!
      See here:
      https://www.trackapartner.com/

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    3. Re:yeah..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can buy tower engineer software and an SDR easy enough. A couple of hours will break most encryption. The next election shoud feature so stalking and nocurnal tracking which will revel which senators are seedy or unfaithful, but unable to afford 100K plus shoosh contracts.Once I have your IMEI and your antitheft car tracking beeper - good to go,

  2. Cheese post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let them eat cheesecake

    1. Re: Cheese post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mmmmm hmmmm cheesecake. I gotta be a bounty hunter. Now where did I put my ninja outfit and my nunchucks and my power rangers training videos?

  3. Too bad by Kohath · · Score: -1, Troll

    FCC is shut down to prevent border security measures from being built.

    1. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      FCC is shut down to prevent border security measures from being built.

      NO. Shut down to prevent billions spent on a made up distraction issue to placate red hat wearing morons.

      A budget was passed last year by both houses and both parties in Congress. Trump agreed to it.
      Then, some losers on Fox News - a network of nothing but opinions lacking facts - said Trump is being weak for not demanding funding for a wall his promised would be paid for by the Mexicans.

      So he then reneged on the deal - big surprise!
      The Democrats, tired of being the jerks, said too bad! Let's do our original deal.
      Mitch McConnell (R-KY) the Senate majority leader lying spineless asshole, is too much of a coward to stand up to Trump.
      So here we are.
      The wall will NOT solve ANY of the issues Trump is saying it will solve. The Wall is NOTHING but a distraction issue for his idiotic base. (I'm done with being polite. I'm gonna 'say it like it is': Trump supporters are morons.)

      BUT wait! There's more, Even IF the government wasn't shutdown, we have seen that the Trump administration doesn't give a rat's ass about consumer protections . Case in point: the CFPB being neutered.

      tl;dr; the current shutdown is 100% Trump and the Republicans' fault.

    2. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Triggered much?

      Oh boohoo he said Mexico would pay for a wall. Anyone astute to politics knows campaign promises don't always work out.

      The democrats are so opposed to Trump that they'll outright lie and hope people don't remember them calling for a wall and stronger border security. They should have no problem with 5.7 billion considering how most are tax and spend liberals anyways.

    3. Re: Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That might all be true, but the issue here is that Pelosi is refusing to offer a budget with ANY funding for a wall, even if it's fifty cents for a new coat of paint on the one that has existed for decades.
      Trump has stated that he won't discuss a bill unless funding is part of the discussion, Pelosi refuses to discuss it. Considering it was the Democrats who prevented the Appropriations Bill from being voted on, that leaves the shutdown square in their lap no matter what soundbites you heard on TV or Facebook.

    4. Re:Too bad by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, the FCC is shut down due to a temper tantrum. President man baby needs his ego stroked to the tune of 5 billion dollars and he's willing to hold the federal government hostage to get it.

    5. Re:Too bad by sjames · · Score: 2

      Well, since the Mexico paying for it part didn't pan out, we're half way there. The Wall part won't pan out either and we can get on with spending the money for something that might actually work.

    6. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      This is what Rachel Maddow's audience ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

    7. Re:Too bad by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      So the ridiculous bullshit is off the table and they now actually have a border security idea that could work?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re:Too bad by Opportunist · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's also what the whole mess looks like to the rest of the world. Seriously, the US look more and more like they put Donald Duck in command of the Titanic.

      Trump is like a spoiled kid throwing a tantrum because he doesn't get the toy he wanted. What this buffoon needs is a good spanking.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    9. Re: Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone besides Trump refuses to fund a wall.
      If the Republicans wanted a wall they could have funded it last year, but they also know that the wall is a useless expense that only Trump, and possibly the steel industry, wants.

      Why would Pelosi agree to fund Trumps pet project when not even the Republicans wanted it?
      Also, in what is Trump willing to trade in return?
      He already turned down a budget with $15bn allocated for the wall just because it also had DACA funding in it.
      If he wants Polesi to compromise he at least has to suggest something that actually makes America better in return.

    10. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice repeat of all of the DNC talking points.You forget the latest key word. "This a MANUFACTURED crisis." You've got to work that in or the Big Lie won't work.

      Everybody who has been paying attention knows that the point is to prevent Trump from having a win. If he gets to build the wall and it actually reduces illegal immigration what will the open border Democrats do? Their plans for flooding the country with low information potential voters will be ruined.

    11. Re: Too bad by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I think the Democrats need to cast the Republicans' motives into sharp relief.

      Propose a bill that gives $50B to fully fund construction of the wall, but conditioned upon full amnesty for all immigrants currently in the country illegally, including amnesty for all crimes that either would not have been crimes or would not have been necessary had they been admitted to the country legally (lying on government forms, using someone else's SSN, etc.).

      If the Republicans really are doing this because of security, then this is a no-brainer. They get what they want, and the Democrats get what they want. It's a simple trade.

      If the Republicans really just want the wall because they're trying to get/keep Hispanics out, then they will get all huffy about it and call it a cheap political stunt, and then we'll all know for sure that they don't deserve our votes. Start running attack ads against every Republicans who voted against it within a week after the vote, and in the next election, run conservative Latino/Latina Democrats against each one. Then sit back and watch the party burn (metaphorically).

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    12. Re:Too bad by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      We already get fewer than 80k illegal immigrants successfully passing across 1,954 miles of border each year. So in each mile of border, about one person goes across every week or two. If you really call that a flood, then I think we've just found the low-information voter.

      And if you think that they benefit the Democrats in any meaningful way, you're even more low-information. At that rate, illegal immigrants increase the population of our country by only about two and a half hundredths of one percent per year, and the population growth rate caused by the difference between births and deaths in the United States is about 28x that much (.7 percent), which means even if every immigrant voted Democrat, it would take hundreds (and maybe even thousands) of years for that level of immigration to make a 1% difference in the balance of votes between parties. But Hispanics tend to vote on a 60-40 split, which means it would likely take millions of years.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    13. Re: Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A wall seems to work just fine for Israel

  4. ehhh by msauve · · Score: 2

    Maybe they'll do something about private mis-use of private info. Probably not, but it makes a good soundbite.

    But where's the upset about government agencies (e.g. police) using Stingrays to intercept cell phone calls? Which, BTW, is already illegal (but ignored) since they transmit on licensed frequencies.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:ehhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a soundbite.

      None of this is about outrage, it's about creating a voting base for the issue next cycle and a platform for roasting people they don't like. It won't ever be solved as long as it can produce votes. Curing the disease is never the intention. Keeping you hooked on the drugs for your whole lifetime is the intention. Just like the medical insurance industry.

      The Stingrays won't ever be solved either. For as much as they stand against the constitution they're too valuable to the government as a canary.

      The words coming out of their mouths have nothing to do with their intentions. The government does what's best for the government.

    2. Re:ehhh by Can'tNot · · Score: 1

      They already did something about private mis-use of private info, that was in March of 2017. It was that bill which gave permission for ISPs to sell your information to people like, for example, bounty hunters.

      If you want them to prevent rather than enable the mis-use of private info, you're going to have to wait for a different president and a consequently better FCC.

  5. Secret meeting in the FCC -- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They want us to act, and act now!!

    Now, who here has done any acting?
    I was in a school play!
    I saw a play once...
    I took acting lessons, they threw me out for ... better not mention that.

    Captha: breeding

    1. Re: Secret meeting in the FCC -- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh please. Everyone has been on a stage. Except maybe dullards who didnâ(TM)t get a copy of the script and only watch.

  6. AC Calls on Slashdot to Investigate Previous Posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In Order to Avoid Duplicates

  7. Simple law by gurps_npc · · Score: 2

    Companies must get express permission, revocable at any time to sell any data obtained from a paying client.

    You want to sell my data? You can't charge me a penny. Because that penny establishes a legal responsibility to protect my privacy.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Simple law by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Companies must get express permission, revocable at any time to sell any data obtained from a paying client.

      Then express permission will become a requirement for service, and revoking that permission will cancel the service,

      You arent offering a solution. All you are doing is increasing government power and therefore all the increased corruption that goes hand-in-hand with increasing government power will be on your hands.

      If you want your future complaints to fall on deaf ears, you are off to a good start.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    2. Re: Simple law by misnohmer · · Score: 1

      I see you're building in a loophole for Google, Facebook, etc. If you use a free service, they can sell any data they can gather on you. Next step, all cellular connections are free of charge, but if you want voice, sms or data, that costs money. Your location is collected as part of you connecting to the base station, which is a free service, therefore your location is not protected. Y the simple law you just proposed.

    3. Re:Simple law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're quite apparently one of the head-in-ass-completely Republican retards who love to assert that corporate power can't ever be constrained by regulations, one of the John Birch Bitches.

      We'll send one of Trump's "coffee boys" to get some butter so you can lube your asshole and remove your non-functional head from the crevasse.

    4. Re:Simple law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Meantime, in the old world, individual privacy is valued and protected. Corporations are not omnipotent.

      This shows WHY regulation is needed and SHOULD be in place.

    5. Re:Simple law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Companies must get express permission, revocable at any time to sell any data obtained from a paying client.

      Then express permission will become a requirement for service, and revoking that permission will cancel the service,

      You arent offering a solution.

      Actually that is a solution, but there is a couple of extra steps to it.
      It turns out that to make it work it has to look very closely, if not exactly, like GDPR.

      Of course companies and shills that sell your data is going to shout that GDPR is evil and doesn't work. After all, their business model doesn't work that well under it.
      Thing is, that was the entire point of it.

    6. Re:Simple law by terrycarlino · · Score: 1

      So we're suppose to get bent out of shape because bounty hunters are using people's location data to catch people who have jumped bail? Do you even know what bounty hunters do? They go after people who have borrowed money to post bail and then don't show up for their court date.

      Typically this results in the bail bondsman losing the money they put up. But don't be fooled, no bail bondsman loans money without collateral. Usually this is the accused house, or their parent's house. Or the business of the friend they fooled into taking a chance on them. So this means the bondsman puts a lien against the house or the business or whatever and if they don't get their money the poor dupe who trusted the bail jumper loses their house or business or whatever.

      Tell me again how these wanted fugitives, who are wanted by the police, the court system, and often not just the victims of their crimes but the 'friends' and family who have helped them out, have a right to privacy.

  8. Well bail bonds is shutting down in CA later this by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Well bail bonds is shutting down in CA later this year so this may be moot.

  9. all you need is an 4 hour class. by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  10. If Congress wasn't already bought and paid for by bobstreo · · Score: 2

    by telecoms, the Headline would read:

    Senators Call On FCC To Investigate Carriers Selling Location Data

    1. Re:If Congress wasn't already bought and paid for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      senators: "we want more money"

    2. Re:If Congress wasn't already bought and paid for by bobstreo · · Score: 1

      senators: "we want more money"

      Just working on building their war chests for 2020...

    3. Re:If Congress wasn't already bought and paid for by SirAstral · · Score: 1

      Well, according to many they like it this way because they get to at least vote for the person that betrays them.

  11. Trump faggots will hang for treason, FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Democrats never called for "a wall" - a "bollard fence" in some limited high-access areas was approved, funding for that is in the bipartisan funding bill. Trump faggots will hang for their treason, FTFY.

    We're going to make Trump pay for it.

    1. Re:Trump faggots will hang for treason, FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      faggot? treason? wow you are so pathetically delusional you should get some serious help now.

    2. Re:Trump faggots will hang for treason, FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Did I stutter? He's a fucking TRAITOR. He works for Vlad Putin as a dick polisher. He's a fucking moron. Trump will die in Federal prison and won't live long enough to even begin his multiple state sentences.

      You worship a treasonous moronic faggot. That's your problem, and the solution is the gallows. You should hang. Seriously no joke, you're a traitor beyond the point of deniability. You roll with compromat, you get the gulag.

      This is what happens when you're so fucking head-in-ass that you think you're smarter than the NSA/FBI/DOJ all at once. PRISON UNTIL YOU DIE, TRAITOR DRUMPFTARDS. And your bitch beta sons and whore daughter too!

  12. Send a message by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Execute every executive responsible for this at these companies

  13. Don't mind me... by Alypius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm just waiting for the "if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" crowd to chime in...

    1. Re:Don't mind me... by bgrahambo · · Score: 1

      That crowd is referring to government surveillance. FYI, there's none of that in this case

    2. Re:Don't mind me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah - like a bounty hunter isn't acting like a proxy for government surveillance.

  14. Re:Well bail bonds is shutting down in CA later th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got a Harley Davidson... Does that turn you on? /Chico's Bail Bonds FTW

  15. Nothing will happen with Pai around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Pai is just an industry cuck and rolls over for what the telcos want.

    The dude has no spine. There will be no meaningful enforcement action from the FCC while he's around.

    1. Re:Nothing will happen with Pai around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have an absolute right to the privacy of our data?

      Since when?

      Last I checked, privacy had to be maintained by the careful application of reasoning and physics. It has always been this way and will always be this way.

      Don't misunderstand. I like to think we have a legal right to privacy, but even that is questionable at best.

  16. Ahhh, the EULA by Snotnose · · Score: 1

    They'll just bury it somewhere in the EULA, which nobody reads, and carry on as usual.

    1. Re:Ahhh, the EULA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since corporate lobbyists are so fond of "harmonization" of laws (That somehow tends to always lead to copyright extensions, regardless of what the law was about.) I think that it would be appropriate if the US did some harmonization and adopted GDPR.

      Of course that will be problematic for every business based on selling consumer data to sketchy third parties, but hey, harmonization can't benefit everyone.

  17. Got people looking for you? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Dont use a smartphone, cell phone. Don't let your voice print get captured at state and federal level.
    Find work that pays cash in another part of the USA and stay away from all CCTV.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  18. hahahha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was probably the senators signatures that made this all legal

  19. Bounty Hunter Source by mentil · · Score: 1

    I know that P.I.s sometimes hire hackers to infiltrate systems to get dirt on their suspects. I have a feeling this bounty hunter simply bribed a low-level worker at whichever phone company to hand over data they have access to but are technically not allowed to look at without good reason, much less give away. This might be less "phone companies selling access" and more "corrupt employee bribed to give away data" which is at least as old of a problem as the Battle of Thermopylae.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Bounty Hunter Source by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Bounty hunters are not the most upright of citizens and well, lets be honest, organised crime has it hooks into many of those companies. So basically they are no selling perfect information for hitmen to track people down at a moments notice and find the best location to kill them. Unbelievable that corporations are selling this information, that should require a warrant. Insane psychopathic greed on full display.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  20. Privacy in the USA? by Buttonius · · Score: 1, Funny

    Must be a bugger to live in a country where privacy protection is the exception to the rule.

  21. Informed? by Shaitan · · Score: 1

    These companies combine to form a virtual monopoly. A law that requires them to inform or any major industry to today to simply inform is just pissing in the wind. The practice needs outlawed and users data needs to be ruled their own property.

  22. Re:Well bail bonds is shutting down in CA later th by terrycarlino · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I'm interested to see how that works.

    Will it result in a larger number of defendants being held in pre-trial detention or will it result in an explosion of defendants just not showing up to court? Or both?

    It's an interesting experiment and a great reason for why the U.S. needs to stay a collection of sovereign states that can do things their own way.

    I personally think it will be a disaster. Particularly for poor and minority defendants. I hope I'm wrong.

    We'll see though.

  23. Re:Well bail bonds is shutting down in CA later th by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    Yeah, I'm interested to see how that works.

    Washington D.C. did it a couple of decades ago, and they haven't reversed that decision, so I guess at the very least, it wasn't enough of a disaster to bother fixing.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  24. This should be banned outright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I were to do this I would be arrested for stalking. When a business does it, it is a necessary service to sell unwanted advertising.