This Adtech Company is Powering Surveillance of U.S. Military Personnel
Last year, a joint investigation revealed that a Florida-based data broker, Datastream Group, was selling highly sensitive location data that tracked United States military and intelligence personnel overseas. However, at the time, the origin of that data remained unknown.
Now, a letter sent to US senator Ron Wyden’s office that was obtained by an international collective of media outlets—including WIRED and 404 Media—reveals that Eskimi, a little-known Lithuanian adtech company, was the ultimate source of that data.
Eskimi’s role highlights the opaque and interconnected nature of the location data industry: A Lithuanian company provided data on US military personnel in Germany to a databroker in Florida, which could then theoretically sell that data to essentially anyone.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance