Adversaries of the United States are reportedly using location data to target military forces deployed to war zones, the news coming amid the war with Iran’s radical Islamic regime.
Digital advertisers typically use location data from apps and service providers who sell it to data brokers, the Army Times reported Thursday, citing a Reuters article.
The report continued:
In a letter shared with Reuters by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, U.S. Central Command said it had “received multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater.”
The message, sent on April 14, offered no further specifics, but CENTCOM’s area of responsibility includes the Gulf, where U.S. forces are facing off against the Iranian military over the Strait of Hormuz.
A New York Times article in 2018 detailed how the apps know where people are and share that data. It cited one case where a woman’s whereabouts were recorded almost every two seconds, according to Breitbart News.
In a letter to Pentagon officials, Wyden and several bipartisan legislators warned, “Commercial location data can be used to identify where U.S. troops congregate and their pattern of life which can be exploited by adversaries to target attacks such as missiles, drones, and roadside bombs, as well as for counterintelligence purposes.”
The news comes amid U.S. strikes on Iran as President Donald Trump works to secure a peace deal and as Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) recently said Iran targets the U.S. every day via cyberattacks, according to Breitbart News.
He stated “Counter-drone, cyberattacks, and lone wolf actors, these are the things that we have to fight against. And if Iran had — if they could get it done, they would, they would attack us.”
“They attack us every day, millions of times a day, with cyberattacks. If they could get something done here on the ground, on our soil. They would do it. So, it always shocks me when you see people defending the Iranian terrorist regime,” he added.
Trump recently said the emerging U.S.-Iran peace framework was the opposite of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, according to Breitbart News.
“If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of CASH, and a clear and open path to a Nuclear Weapon,” he stated.