An investigation reveals how phone coordinates collected by US data broker Datastream expose the movements of US military and intelligence workers in Germany
More than 3 billion phone coordinates collected by a US data broker expose the detailed movements of US military and intelligence workers …
Wired
Context & Ripple Effects
This report extends earlier coverage of location data harvested from ordinary phone apps creating risks for intelligence officers and military personnel, including a 2021 examination of app-derived geolocation risks. It turns that broad exposure into a named broker and a specific operational setting: US personnel in Germany.
The case also sits alongside evidence that government bodies have used commercial location databases for tracking, as described in a Defense Intelligence Agency memo on commercial location data. That overlap matters because the same data-market infrastructure can expose personnel while also serving official investigative uses.
First-order effects
US military and intelligence workers whose devices appear in Datastream's data face immediate operational-security and personal-privacy exposure, since detailed coordinates can reveal recurring movements and associations.
Datastream faces heightened scrutiny over how its location data was collected, handled, and made available, while affected US organizations must assess whether movement patterns need mitigation.
Second-order effects
The disclosure increases pressure on organizations that deploy personnel to treat ad-tech and brokered mobile data as an operational-security risk, not merely a consumer-privacy issue.
It also sharpens scrutiny across the data-broker supply chain: a later claim that Datastream's data originated with Eskimi, which Eskimi denied, underscores how difficult provenance disputes over military location data can be to resolve.
Third-order effects
If such cases continue, location-data markets may face a more durable divide between data that can be traded for advertising purposes and data whose granularity makes it sensitive for national-security reasons.
The central structural tension is that commercial location databases can support state use while creating exposure for the same populations; resolving it may require controls that reach beyond any one broker.
The trend: Commercial mobile-location data is becoming an operational-security issue as data-broker supply chains make sensitive movement patterns accessible outside traditional intelligence channels.
Everyone is reading this incredible @dmehro.bsky.social and @dell.bsky.social production, but I'd like to draw your attention to the Pentagon's response to a request for comment:
A joint investigation by WIRED, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Netzpolitik reveals that US companies legally collecting digital advertising data are also providing a cheap and reliable way to track the movements of American military and intelligence personnel overseas www.wired.com/st…
For months now, my focus has been building tools to find stories in masses of geodata with #rstats and @duckdb.org — Lately, we teamed up with @wired.com to show the risk of commercially available location data https://www.wired.com/... #databroker
Your periodic reminder: — Ordinary apps on your phone can collect spy-level information on millions of people's physical movements. And there are virtually no U.S. laws to stop them from selling or sharing that data with anyone. — www.wired.com/story/phone-... [image]
this story is absolutely wild - more than 3 billion phone coordinates collected by a US data broker exposed the detailed movements of US military and intelligence workers in Germany — www.wired.com/story/phone-...
Dangerous data trading: research by @netzpolitik.org, Bayrischer Rundfunk and @wired.com reveals how access to data puts security - and people - at risk. — www.wired.com/story/phone-...
Great work @wired.com! I keep explaining the importance of identifiability of datasets when talking about the fundamentals of GDPR, and this article once again shows the risks if datasets are not handled carefully. — www.wired.com/story/phone-...
It's fantastic to see that @wired.com has joined forces with “BR” and Netzpolitik to follow up on the stellar"Adint"-research , focusing on data tracking and how it reveals insame amounts of private data. — www.wired.com/story/phone-...
More than 3 billion phone coordinates collected by a US data broker expose the detailed movements of US military and intelligence workers in Germany—and the Pentagon is powerless to stop it. — New @dmehro.bsky.social and @dell.bsky.social story on WIRED
Advertisement infrastructure allows data collection enabling tracking of US military and intelligence personnel, revealing movements from homes and schools to sensitive sites like airbases and intelligence centers, posing serious security risks. www.wired.com/story/phone-... [im…
Thanks @WIRED @dmehro for letting me comment on this horror story: 3B+ phone coordinates collected by a US data broker expose the detailed movements of US military + intelligence workers in Germany. ‘The scope of the industry is the problem,’ Sherman says. https://www.wired.com/.…
NEW: Billions of coordinates sold by a US data broker exposed the movements of thousands of US military & intel personnel—from nuclear vaults and NSA hubs to their homes and brothels. The DoD knows the data is out there but can't stop its sale. https://www.wired.com/...
Interesting, but how is this data gathered at sufficient scale? Is there like “one popular app” that we ~all use that's screwing us, or is this a bunch of EOL Android devices, or a “long tail” of junky apps, or something else? https://x.com/...
“Anyone Can Buy Data Tracking US Soldiers and Spies to Nuclear Vaults and Brothels in Germany” Yet another scandal about the giant RTB data breach (RTB explicitly highlighted in the article) https://www.wired.com/...
Datastream Group, the data broker that tracked U.S. military movements inside suspected nuclear vaults, has taken its website offline and vanished from the internet. It did not respond to multiple requests for comments for our story. [image]