WaPo: Governments Exploit Cell Phone Technology to Track Users Worldwide
A “burgeoning, multibillion-dollar surveillance industry” is making technology available to governments around the world that lets them “track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cell phone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent,” a Washington Post investigation shows.
On Sunday, the Post reported that these surveillance systems, which vendors are marketing to government agencies overseas, exploit “an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them.”
Users of the technology are able to type a phone number into a computer system, which in turn employs information from cellular carriers like AT&T or Verizon—such as what cell tower the target is currently using—to pinpoint a person’s location “to within a few blocks in an urban area or a few miles in a rural one.”
Such spying practices are nothing new in the U.S. and other technologically developed countries, national tech reporter Craig Timberg notes in his report.
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The technology could also be employed by hackers, criminal gangs, or nations under sanctions, Timberg writes.
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