Our findings on the use of ad-based surveillance in Europe raise the question:
Can surveillance firms lawfully obtain billions of location records tied to device identifiers from apps installed on phones under the GDPR?
I doubt it.
The tech used in Hungary and by other potential customers in Europe and the UK relies on the systematic misuse of personal data originally processed by mobile apps for app operation or advertising purposes for an entirely different purpose: government surveillance.
We publish a major Citizen Lab report on Webloc, an ad-based mass surveillance system that monitors the movements and personal characteristics of hundreds of millions people globally based on data obtained from mobile apps and digital advertising.
Customers include ICE, El Salvador and Hungary.
Our research shows that ad-based surveillance is now used by military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies down to local police in several countries.
Full report here:
https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based-geolocation-surveillance-tech/
