WASHINGTON D.C. (KEYT) – On Tuesday, California's Senators joined 68 other members of Congress calling for an investigation into the warrantless purchase of cell phone location data by the Department of Homeland Security.
"Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medicalconditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time. It is for that reason that ordinarily, the government must obtain a warrant from a judge in order to demand such data from phone or technology companies," explained Tuesday's letter from members of Congress. "Consumers must explicitly consent to how their data will be used. It is not enough for an app developer to include fine print that app data will be sold or to obtain general consent to access location data. Through its recent cases against Venntel, Mobilewalla, and X-Mode Social, the FTC has made it clear that it is an unfair business practice in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act for data brokers to sell location data to the government that was obtained without consumer consent. Data brokers that continue to sell such data to the government are violating federal law."
The letter, addressed to Joseph Cuffari, the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, specifically requests that the federal watchdog investigate if any component of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is purchasing illegally obtained date about Americans and how the law enforcement agencies use it.
Tuesday's letter noted that Senator Wyden of Oregon called for a Congressional hearing over the purchase of location data by ICE after independent news organization 404 Media reported that the federal agency purchased a surveillance tool that harvested data from people's smart hones remotely late last year.
This was not the first time that a component of the Department of Homeland Security had purchased phone location data without a warrant authorizing the search.
In 2023, Inspector General Cuffari signed off on a report that found that the U.S. Secret Service, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) -which are all components of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security- had purchased the data in violation of federal law.
"СВР, ІСE, and Secret Service purchased access to commercial telemetry data (CTD) collected from mobile devices that included, among other things, historical device location," concluded the 2023 Inspector General report. "Specifically, the components did not adhere to DHS' privacy policies and theE-Government Act of 2002, which require certain privacy sensitive technology or data obtained from that technology, such as CTD [commercial telemetry data], to have an approved Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) before such technology is developed or procured."
"Your subsequent report, published on September 28, 2023, found that CBP, ICE and the Secret Service all violated federal law through their warrantless purchase and use of location data," noted Tuesday's letter. "In addition, your review found serious problems regarding how these agencies were overseeing their employees' use of this sensitive data, including employees sharing accounts and passwords to phone tracking databases, a complete failure by supervisors to request or review audit logs to detect patterns of abuse, and in one instance, the misuse of data by a DHS employee to track coworkers."
According to the 2023 report, the instance of an employee using telemetry data to track coworkers, "was reported to CBP’s Joint Intake Center and Office of Professional Responsibility and was resolved administratively."
During the investigation into the use of telemetry data, Department of Homeland Security officials argued that the location data they had purchased was "anonymized" and did not qualify as personally identifying information under federal law and that only users who had consented to having their location data sold and used by third parties were purchased.
"[O]n January 14, 2025, the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] finalized an order against Venntel, one of the data brokers from which CBP and ICE bought location data, after the FTC determined the company was illegally selling location data that was collected without consumer consent," noted the letter the letter this week signed by 70 members of Congress. "It is not enough for an app developer to include fine print that app data will be sold or to obtain general consent to access location data. Through its recent cases against Venntel, Mobilewalla, and X-Mode Social, the FTC has made it clear that it is an unfair business practice in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act for data brokers to sell location data to the government that was obtained without consumer consent. Data brokers that continue to sell such data to the government are violating federal law."
Last year, ICE resumed its location data collection efforts after issuing a no-bid contract with surveillance company Penlink that includes licensing for Webloc, a location tracking product shared Tuesday Congressional letter.
"Webloc was developed by the controversial surveillance company Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with Nebraska-based Penlink as part of a $200M private equity deal in 2023," detailed Tuesday's letter. "Cobwebs gained notoriety when Meta banned the company in 2021, as part of a crackdown on surveillance mercenaries after detecting the company’s customers targeting activists, opposition politicians and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico."
Tuesday's letter specifically requested an investigation into the use of location data targeting Americans participating in constitutionally-protected actions, including observing ICE enforcement operations and protesting as well as the use of audits for employees using commercial location data to identify patterns of abuse of the information.
After reporting revealed the resumption of location data collection last year, Senator Wyden of Oregon called for a Congressional hearing in December of last year.
One day before the scheduled hearing in early February of this year, ICE officials canceled the appearance without explanation stated Tuesday's Congressional letter.
"Given DHS' failure to adopt a policy for the use of commercial data, coupled with ICE awarding a no-bid contract to a shady data broker that is likely violating federal law, we urge you to open anotherinvestigation into the purchase and use of location data by ICE and other DHS components," concluded the letter.
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