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The US Secret Service has signed a contract to access Locate X from the American company Babel Street, a service that allows law enforcement agencies to track the whereabouts of phone users. In March this year, the technical publication Protocol reported that a number of government agencies signed millions of contracts with Babel Street after it launched Locate X. According to several sources, Locate X tracks the location of the device anonymously using data from applications installed on it ...
Protocol journalists also found publicly available documents indicating that the US Customs and Border Protection is among those who paid for access to data through Locate X. Locate X also acquired USSS, one source said. Recent material from Motherboard confirms this fact. A contract leaked to reporters indicates that USSS paid Virginia's Babel Street about $ 36,000 to add Locate X to its $ 2 million social media monitoring package.
US law requires law enforcement to obtain a court order from technology companies. Nevertheless, as practice shows, government agencies often simply buy geolocation data from specialized companies, and this does not require an order.
Protocol journalists also found publicly available documents indicating that the US Customs and Border Protection is among those who paid for access to data through Locate X. Locate X also acquired USSS, one source said. Recent material from Motherboard confirms this fact. A contract leaked to reporters indicates that USSS paid Virginia's Babel Street about $ 36,000 to add Locate X to its $ 2 million social media monitoring package.
US law requires law enforcement to obtain a court order from technology companies. Nevertheless, as practice shows, government agencies often simply buy geolocation data from specialized companies, and this does not require an order.
