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News


FTC BANS LOCATION DATA COMPANY THAT POWERS THE SURVEILLANCE ECOSYSTEM

Joseph Cox
· Dec 3, 2024 at 10:00 AM
Venntel is a primary provider of location data to the government or other
companies that sell to U.S. agencies. The FTC is banning Venntel from selling
data related to health clinics, refugee shelters, and much more.
Image: Voicu Horațiu.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced sweeping action against some of the
most important companies in the location data industry on Tuesday, including
those that power surveillance tools used by a wide spread of U.S. law
enforcement agencies and demanding they delete data related to certain sensitive
areas like health clinics and places of worship. 

Venntel, through its parent company Gravy Analytics, takes location data from
smartphones, either through ordinary apps installed on them or through the
advertising ecosystem, and then provides that data feed to other companies who
sell location tracking technology to the government or sells the data directly
itself. Venntel is the company that provides the underlying data for a variety
of other government contractors and surveillance tools, including Locate X. 404
Media and a group of other journalists recently revealed Locate X could be used
to pinpoint phones that visited abortion clinics. 

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The FTC says in a proposed order that Gravy and Venntel will be banned from
selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data, except in “limited
circumstances” involving national security or law enforcement. Sensitive
locations include medical facilities, religious organizations, correctional
facilities, labor union offices, schools and childcare facilities, domestic
abuse and homeless support centers, shelters for refugee or immigrant
populations, and military installations. The FTC also demands that the companies
delete all historic location data. 

The move is significant in that it targets a crucial player in the broader
location data industry, but also in that it could have an impact on the
surveillance of Americans by American agencies. 

“Surreptitious surveillance by data brokers undermines our civil liberties and
puts servicemembers, union workers, religious minorities, and others at risk,”
Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in the
announcement. “This is the FTC’s fourth action taken this year challenging the
sale of sensitive location data, and it’s past time for the industry to get
serious about protecting Americans’ privacy.” In October, independent researcher
Jack Poulson reported that the FTC opened an investigation into Venntel.

In 2020, I, withme and journalists from Norwegian media organization NRK,
revealed how Venntel sourced its data at the time. It used ordinary apps
installed on peoples’ smartphones, including innocuous looking weather or
navigation apps. These apps collected their users location data, and then
provided that to other, middlemen companies. Those firms then provide data to
Gravy, which sells location data products for marketers. Gravy also owns
Venntel, which then sells location data to U.S. law enforcement agencies.

💡
Do you work for Venntel, Gravy, or Babel Street? I would love to hear from you.
Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at +44 20 8133
5190. Otherwise, send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

The IRS, DEA, and FBI have all purchased Venntel data. So have Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Venntel has also provided the data for other location data tracking products
which the government buys, including Babel Street’s Locate X, according to an
internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by 404 Media. Venntel
also appears to provide the data to Fog Data Science, a company that sells a
similar monitoring product to local law enforcement, according to emails
obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In its announcement, the FTC said that Gravy and Venntel violated the FTC Act by
“unfairly selling sensitive consumer location data, and by collecting and using
consumers’ location data without obtaining verifiable user consent for
commercial and government uses.” Gravy continued to use consumers’ location data
even after learning that the consumers did not provide informed consent, the FTC
says. “Gravy Analytics also unfairly sold sensitive characteristics, like health
or medical decisions, political activities and religious viewpoints, derived
from consumers’ location data,” the agency adds.

According to the FTC, Gravy and Venntel collect more than 17 billion signals
from around a billion mobile devices daily.

The FTC also announced action against Mobilewalla, another location data
company. In June 2020, Buzzfeed News reported that Mobilewalla monitored phones
at Black Lives Matter protests. The following month, ten lawmakers urged the FTC
to investigate Mobilewalla. 

“I am glad that the FTC acted on my request to protect the data of U.S. military
personnel stationed around the world. This was an absurd limitation in the FTC's
prior order, and the Chair and her staff should be commended for protecting the
location data of our men and women in uniform,” Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media
in a statement.

Notably, the action against Mobilewalla bans it from collecting consumer data
from “online advertising auctions for purposes other than participating in those
auctions.” That refers to the real-time bidding (RTB) process, where instead of
getting data from apps directly, companies source it by observing the
advertising bidding process. This is “the first time the agency has alleged such
a practice was an unfair act or practice,” the announcement reads.

An email to the press inquiries address for Unacast, which merged with Gravy
last year, went undelivered.

404 Media is an independent website whose work is written, reported, and owned
by human journalists and whose intended audience is real people, not AI
scrapers, bots, or a search algorithm. Become a paid subscriber here for access
to all of our articles ad-free and bonus content.
About the author
Joseph is an award-winning investigative journalist focused on generating
impact. His work has triggered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines,
shut down tech companies, and much more.
More from Joseph Cox


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