More than 70 Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday urged the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to investigate whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other DHS agencies have resumed warrantless purchases of Americans’ cellphone location data from commercial brokers, potentially violating federal law and privacy protections.
The bicameral letter calls for scrutiny of recent no-bid contracts — including one to data broker Penlink — after a 2023 DHS inspector general report found similar practices breached privacy rules and prompted a halt. Lawmakers cited public contracting documents showing resumption of buys from “shady” brokers likely violating law, absent new policies governing commercial data use, and demanded details on data sourcing, usage, employee access audits and abuse prevention.
Location Privacy at the Forefront of Several Legal Proceedings…
Civil liberties groups and tech companies pressed the Supreme Court to declare geofence warrants unconstitutional in briefs filed in the high-profile Chatrie v. United States case.
Google GOOG -0.62%↓ urged the court to strike down geofence warrants as unconstitutional, noting it has objected to over 3,000 such requests on those grounds and shifted to on-device storage of location history in 2025, preventing responses to them.
In other location privacy news:
- The Federal Trade Commission and data broker Kochava informed an Idaho federal judge they have reached a negotiated settlement to resolve a long-running lawsuit over Kochava’s sale of precise geolocation data from mobile devices.
- A federal judge in Chicago allowed a proposed class action against Allstate ALL 0.53%↑ to proceed, alleging the insurer’s Arity unit illegally tracked drivers via cellphone apps without consent, collecting location, speed, braking and usage data to adjust premiums, deny coverage and sell insights to others, potentially violating the Federal Wiretap Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act.
- Ford F 1.35%↑ agreed to pay a $375,703 fine to the California Privacy Protection Agency and simplify consumer opt-out processes after the agency found the automaker added unnecessary friction to privacy rights requests under the California Consumer Privacy Act in connected vehicle data handling.
- Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird sued General Motors and OnStar in state court, claiming deceptive practices since 2015 in collecting and selling detailed driving data — including speed, seatbelt use, habits and location — without adequate disclosure or consent, violating the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and seeking penalties, data deletion and injunctive relief.
