It Is Time to Ban the Sale of Precise Geolocation
by hn_acker on 4/17/2026, 2:25:46 PM
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/it-is-time-to-ban-the-sale-of-precise-geolocation
Comments
by: Johnbot
A lot of geolocation data on the market is anonymized, following medium-lived unique IDs that aren't able to be mapped to other identifiers. The problem with that is that if you have precise locations, or enough samples that you can apply statistics to find precise locations, in many cases you can de-anonymize the IDs. You can purchase address and resident listings from a number of different data vendors, and by checking where the device returns to at night you can figure its home address. Then if you find information on the residents (work locations, schools, etc.), you see if said device goes where each resident of the home address is likely to go, and you now have a pretty good idea of exactly who the device belongs to.
4/17/2026, 2:58:37 PM
by: ch4s3
IMO we should ban gathering this data without a warrant or specific contractual agreement between the device owner and entity aggregating the data. As much as congress loves to claim the interstate commerce theory of everything, this seems like a slam dunk.
4/17/2026, 2:49:06 PM
by: romaniv
The problem with all these discussions about banning stuff is that privacy is <i>always</i> on the back foot. It's by design. People who want to surveil and manipulate us are actively investigating new ways of doing it, they get paid for it and they risk nothing in the long run. All of these discussions about specifics are just reactions. They aren't even reactions to the surveillance itself, but rather to a discovery by someone that a new surveillance machine has been constructed and launched.<p>So the current feedback process involves: construction → exploitation → reporting → public awareness → legislation. This is too slow. Moreover, operating in this environment is exhausting.<p>We need a different feedback loop altogether. I'm not sure which one would work best, but something different needs to be considered.
4/17/2026, 3:40:43 PM
by: linkjuice4all
Let’s just stretch copyright to cover movement/location as a protected creative expression. It’s somewhat ridiculous but we’ve already established case law and technology for handling/mishandling protected assets.
4/17/2026, 3:43:16 PM
by: lifeisstillgood
There needs to be a <i>believeable</i> legal framework behind this.<p>Imagine a option on your iPhone that says “Enable this to allow geo-location tracking for organisations registered under the NOADSJUSTPUBLICGOOD Act” - then any wifi endpoint could locate you as long based on signal strength etc and that data could only be made available to people registered under the act.<p>Would we see new understanding of how people move around in cities, would we see better traffic information, Inthink so - as long as people believe that there are real teeth to the laws and they enforced loudly and publically.<p>We should embrace the benefits of a society wide epidemiology experiment - the benefits for public health are incredible. (Add to that supply chain logistics on open ledgers and many of the new things that just were not possible before and the future of open transparent but well regulated democracies is bright.<p>Let me know if you spot one.
4/17/2026, 4:26:08 PM
by: uxhacker
More details are available here, including screenshots of the tool.<p><a href="https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based-geolocation-surveillance-tech/#3-Webloc" rel="nofollow">https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based...</a>
4/17/2026, 2:50:27 PM
by: kristianpaul
Haven't read the article yet but having more NTRIP public endpoint could help a lot to this precise location
4/17/2026, 5:00:01 PM
by: titzer
These people really have no idea at the level of data collection from Google's rootkit on Android known as "Google Play Services".
4/17/2026, 4:05:01 PM
by: shevy-java
Soon Geolocation will be tied to Age! Then you can meet locals and congratulate them on their birthday. The movie Minority Report was way too timid in its prediction here. Age up everything! \o/
4/17/2026, 5:11:33 PM
by: Eextra953
Does anyone know of any groups that are organizing and lobbying to get things like this into law? I know about the EFF but they seem to be more focused on documenting and reporting instead of lobbying and getting things passed.
4/17/2026, 3:16:43 PM
by: glitchc
How about we just ban the collection of precise geolocation? Wouldn't that be a better solution?
4/17/2026, 3:25:32 PM
by: wolvoleo
Just ban the sale of any kind of adtracking. That way we can get rid of the cookiewalls too.<p>Missed opportunity by the EU when they wrote GDPR.
4/17/2026, 2:55:20 PM
by: lifestyleguru
Smartphones, mobile apps, mobile networks, and WiFi stopped being your friends around 2015-2016. Now it's just a matter of how much data can be harvested from device sensors in real time until reaching a pain point which doesn't exist.
4/17/2026, 3:01:19 PM
by: troupo
Don't you want random companies to store your precise location for 12 years? <a href="https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1817122117093056541" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1817122117093056541</a>
4/17/2026, 2:46:05 PM