Pentagon Confirms American Military Personnel Have Been Targeted Through Commercially Available Location Tracking Data

Summary

U.S. Central Command has officially confirmed in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden that American troops deployed in active war zones have been targeted by adversaries using commercially available location data, marking the first official acknowledgment of such a threat. The location data, which is routinely harvested from smartphones and apps for digital advertising purposes, can reveal troop movements, gathering patterns, and daily routines, making personnel vulnerable to attacks including missile strikes, drone attacks, and roadside bombs. The threat is not entirely new, as a 2016 incident demonstrated that a U.S. defense contractor could track special operations forces from American bases to a sensitive staging post in Syria using commercially available data, and more recent reporting exposed the movements of personnel at 11 U.S. military sites in Germany. A bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to the Pentagon criticizing military officials for failing to act swiftly enough to protect troops, recommending measures such as disabling advertising IDs on military devices, restricting location sharing, and replacing data-heavy browsers like Google Chrome with privacy-focused alternatives. Senator Wyden called for the advertising technology industry to be formally classified as a national security threat, while Google defended Chrome's security credentials and expressed support for stronger data broker regulations.