Name: The US military reportedly bought location data mined from a popular Muslim prayer app to track users for 'counterterrorism'
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The US military reportedly bought location data mined from a popular Muslim prayer app to track users for 'counterterrorism'

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Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.Redeem nowGet the latest tech news &amp; scoops — delivered daily to your inbox.Something is loading.Muslim Pro, a prayer app with over 98 million downloads, reminds users about daily prayers and provides readings from the Quran. The company calls it "The most popular Muslim app."It also tracks users' location and sells that location data to brokers — and the US military is one of the buyers, according to a .Muslim Pro is one of hundreds of smartphone apps that make money by . (The US military bought Muslim Pro's data through one of those third-party data brokers, according to Motherboard.)The practice has raised the ire of privacy advocates, but location-data firms and their partners insist that people's movements are anonymized and not directly tied to their identities. , however, that it's easy to de-anonymize the location data and tie it back to individual people.The new report is the latest illustration of how government agencies can go to private data brokers to collect granular information on individuals' movements, including US citizens. Some lawmakers have called for the practice to be more heavily regulated after it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security to track down people suspected of immigrating to the US illegally.Muslim Pro sells location data to a third-party broker called X-Mode, according to Motherboard's report. X-Mode has sold location data to defense contractors, according to its website, which in turn provide the data to the US Department of Defense.In a statement to Business Insider, Muslim Pro head of community Zahariah Jupary said that in the wake of the Motherboard story the app is "immediately terminating" its contract with X-Mode and other data partners, adding that the location data provided to data partners was anonymized."Since we were made aware of the situation, we have launched an internal investigation and are reviewing our data governance policy to confirm that all user data was handled in line with all existing requirements," Jupary said. "We will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure that our users practice their faith with peace of mind, which remains Muslim Pro's sole mission since its creation."A representative for X-Mode did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.X-Mode told Motherboard that its business with military contractors was "primarily focused on three use cases: counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and predicting future COVID-19 hotspots." X-Mode has previously anonymized location data from people's smartphones to show people's movements to and from areas where COVID-19 is spiking.In other instances, the US military has bought location data directly from brokers rather than going through defense contractors. According to , the US Special Operations Command spent $90,656 in April to access location data provided by the firm Babel Street, which mines data from smartphone apps.Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a US Special Operations Command spokesman, said in a statement to Business Insider that the command bought the data from Babel Street "to support Special Operations Forces mission requirements overseas.""We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies for protecting the privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens," Hawkins said.A representative for Babel Street did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Babel Street sells a product called Locate X that allows people to select an area on a map and shows the movements of devices inside that area, according to Motherboard. Clients can perform as many search queries as they want after paying to access the data, according to a Babel Street .The purchases are noteworthy because the Pentagon has used smartphone location data to plan and execute military operations. The National Security Agency used a different type of location data gleaned from phones' SIM cards to carry out drone strikes against suspected Taliban members, The Intercept in 2014. It remains unclear whether location data purchased through third-party brokers has directly informed specific US military operations.Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know.Subscribe to push notificationsAn icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.Keep readingIt indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.

Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.Redeem nowGet the latest tech news &amp; scoops — delivered daily to your inbox.Something is loading.Muslim Pro, a prayer app with over 98 million downloads, reminds users about daily prayers and provides readings from the Quran. The company calls it "The most popular Muslim app."It also tracks users' location and sells that location data to brokers — and the US military is one of the buyers,...

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The US military reportedly bought location data mined from a popular Muslim prayer app to track users for 'counterterrorism'

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