Investigation
Mass location tracking sold to local police
2022The EFF exposed Fog Reveal as a secretive tool giving small police departments cheap, warrantless access to the movements of 250 million-plus devices via commercial advertising data.
Fog Reveal
Point-and-click tracking of 250M+ phones for local police.
Fog Reveal gives state and local police a cheap, searchable window into the location histories of hundreds of millions of devices, sourced from ordinary apps' advertising data — no warrant, no oversight.
What it does
- ▸Mass device-location search
- ▸Historical movement trails
- ▸Ad-data sourcing
- ▸Cheap local-PD access
Where it's deployed
- ◍Dozens of US police departments (reported)
Agencies using it
Local LE