Consent is required and I never gave it.
The FCC, USTelecom lobby and carriers have a lot of explaining to do. Congress?
LocationSmart packages the carriers data on you and resells it to corporations.
The story blew up because a former police sheriff snooped on phone location data without a warrant, according The New York Times. The sheriff has pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawful surveillance.
Yet little is known about how LocationSmart obtained the real-time location data on millions of Americans, how the required consent from cell user owners was obtained, and who else has access to the data.
Kevin Bankston, director of New America's Open Technology Institute, explained in a phone call that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It doesn't restrict disclosure to other companies, who then may disclose that same data to the government.
He called that loophole "one of the biggest gaps in US privacy law."
LocationSmart, a California-based technology company, is one of a handful of so-called data aggregators. It claimed to have "direct connections" to cell carrier networks to obtain real-time cell phone location data from nearby cell towers.
BTW, Verizon owns Tumblr
Verizon, one of many cell carriers that sells access to its vast amounts of customer location data, counts LocationSmart as a close partner.
The company boasts coverage of 95 percent of the country, thanks to its access to all the major US carriers, including US Cellular, Virgin, Boost, and MetroPCS, as well as Canadian carriers, like Bell, Rogers, and Telus.
"With these location sources, we are able to locate virtually any US based mobile devices," the company claimed.
In any case, the company requires explicit consent from the user before their location data can be used, by sending a one-time text message or allowing a user to hit a button in an app.
LocationSmart also said it allows some customers to obtain "implied" consent, used on a case-by-case basis, when "the nature of the service implies that location will be used."
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