The IRS says it bought access to a marketing database of location data for millions of US cellphones to try to identify and track potential criminal suspects
The unsuccessful effort shows how anonymized information sold by marketers is increasingly being used by law enforcement to identify suspects
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands mid-arc. Months earlier, sources said the Trump administration bought access to a database tracking millions of US phones for immigration and border control — establishing that commercial location feeds were being procured across agencies, not just by one office. Within weeks of this story, two senators' inquiry into warrantless tracking prompted an investigation into the IRS's use of broker-sourced location information, so the agency's failed experiment was already under formal review.
What makes the pattern durable is the supply side: data broker Mobilewalla later confirmed in a letter to Sen. Wyden that its data was used by DHS, the IRS, and the military for warrantless device tracking, and FOIA records showed Treasury buying app-location data from Babel Street to hunt tax and sanctions violators — the same playbook this article caught at the IRS.
First-order effects
- The IRS's attempt to identify criminal suspects from anonymized marketing location data failed outright, meaning the agency paid for access without getting usable leads while exposing itself to the senators' inquiry already underway.
Second-order effects
- Rather than treating the failure as a deterrent, sibling agencies doubled down — Treasury separately acquired sensitive app-data feeds from Babel Street for tax- and sanctions-evasion hunts, and Defense Intelligence Agency analysts were documented doing the same with commercial databases.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, commercially sold 'anonymized' location data becomes a standing workaround around warrant requirements for US agencies, forcing the accountability fight into letters, FOIA requests, and inspector investigations rather than courts — with brokers like Mobilewalla positioned as de facto surveillance infrastructure.
The trend: US government agencies are increasingly substituting purchased commercial location data for court-supervised surveillance, with congressional inquiry lagging well behind procurement.