But iPhones and Android devices have far more location data than those old flip phones, including what can be gleaned from GPS and WiFi access points. Cell phone carriers have long been able to provide some location data to 911 centers even before there were smartphones. Last week, Apple announced that it’s working with emergency technology company RapidSOS to “quickly and securely” share iPhone callers’ location data with 911 centers. The positive story about smartphone location data is also important and worth celebrating. ![]() Motherboard reported that a hacker broke into Securus servers and stole “2,800 usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, and hashed passwords and security questions of Securus users, stretching from 2011 up to this year.” And, as Krebs on Security reported last month, LocationSmart, another data aggregator with access to these phone location records, “has been leaking this information to anyone via a buggy component of its Web site - without the need for any password or other form of authentication or authorization.” In addition to these illegitimate sales to law enforcement, there is also the not-so-theoretical risk of hacking. So far, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have announced that they will no longer provide this information to these third parties.Īccording to Wyden, law enforcement agencies could obtain this data simply by uploading an “official document” to a Securus web portal but said that senior officials from Securus “have confirmed to my office that it never checks the legitimacy of those uploaded documents.” Ron Wyden (D-OR) said that he “recently learned that Securus Technologies, a major provider of correction facility telephone services, purchases real-time location information from major wireless carriers and provides that information, via a self-service portal, to the government with nothing more than a pinky promise.” Wyden also went after Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. In a letter to AT&T president Randall Stephenson, Sen. Locations disclosed without consent or court order In response to the controversy, the major carriers are stopping the practice. The negative story revealed that cell phone carriers were selling real-time customer location information to data brokers who sold that information to law enforcement and others, without necessarily going through those annoying and time consuming formalities such as court orders. The positive story is that Apple’s iOS 12 operating system for iPhone will enable users to “automatically and securely” share their location data with 911 call centers and first responders. One was a positive development and the other quite negative, until it was at least partially fixed. ![]() Two recent news stories about cell phone location services recently caught my eye. This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News
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