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Secret Service buys location data that would otherwise need a warrant
Kate Cox · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 17 August, 2020 - 19:39
An increasing number of law enforcement agencies, including the US Secret Service, are simply buying their way into data that would ordinarily require a warrant, a new report has found, and at least one US senator wants to put a stop to it.
The Secret Service paid about $2 million in 2017-2018 to a firm called Babel Street to use its service Locate X, according to a document ( PDF ) Vice Motherboard obtained . The contract outlines what kind of content, training, and customer support Babel Street is required to provide to the Secret Service.
Locate X provides location data harvested and collated from a wide variety of other apps, tech site Protocol reported earlier this year. Users can "draw a digital fence around an address or area, pinpoint mobile devices that were within that area, and see where else those devices have traveled" in the past several months, Protocol explained.