Sources: federal agencies like CBP and ICE are using Locate X, a tool by a company called Babel Street that tracks phones using data from popular apps
Federal agencies have big contracts with Virginia-based Babel Street. Depending on where you've traveled, your movements may be in the company's data. Tweets: @demianbulwa and @levinsonc Tweets: Demian Bulwa / @demianbulwa : Exclusive: Secret government phone-tracking goes far deeper than we know Piggybacking on common apps, “Locate X” by Babel Street allows investigators to create digital fence-lines & track phones from there, sources told @Protocol Must-read by @levinsonc https://www.protocol.com/... Charles Levinson / @levinsonc : Here's my latest piece for Protocol on federal law enforcement agencies' (including ICE, CBP and the Secret Service) secret purchase of cell phone location data from a company named Babel Street. https://www.protocol.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the story that opened the Locate X file: Protocol reporting that federal agencies including CBP, ICE and the Secret Service hold substantial contracts with Virginia-based Babel Street, whose tool lets investigators draw digital fence-lines around a location and track phones there using location data harvested from popular consumer apps.
The arc since then has been one of confirmation and expansion rather than retraction — a DHS inspector general probe into warrantless tracking via brokered cellphone data followed within months, FOIA records later showed US Treasury buying app data from Babel Street itself to hunt tax and sanctions evasion, and by 2024 privacy advocates had leaked hours of Locate X footage demonstrating its global reach.
First-order effects
- CBP, ICE and the Secret Service gain warrantless geofencing capability: any phone whose apps report location inside a drawn fence-line becomes trackable over time, with no court sign-off visible in the reporting.
- Babel Street converts ordinary consumers' app-derived location data into a government product line, making agency contracts — not app users' consent — the revenue engine.
Second-order effects
- Other agencies follow the template rather than waiting for policy: Treasury's later purchases show the buyer set expanding beyond immigration and border enforcement into tax and sanctions enforcement.
- Congressional scrutiny forces an accountability layer — Democratic senators' request triggers the DHS IG probe, putting procurement-by-data-broker under formal review for the first time.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the structural shift is surveillance migrating from purpose-built government systems to the commercial ad-tech supply chain, where data collected for advertising is repurposed for policing and effectively bypasses due-process restrictions built for direct collection.
- Internal DHS documents showing CBP sourcing location data from the online ad industry years later suggest the Locate X model became institutional practice rather than a one-off contract — raising the regulatory question of whether data brokers face the constraints that bind the agencies themselves.
The trend: Government surveillance is being rebuilt on top of the commercial location-data market, with agencies buying access through brokers like Babel Street faster than oversight or warrant requirements can catch up.