U.S. sues broker for selling data that could track church, health clinic visits

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen at the Federal Trade Commission headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday sued Idaho-based data broker Kochava Inc for selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to track consumers.

The FTC said consumer data could be used to trace people's movements to and from sensitive locations including "reproductive health clinics, places of worship, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and addiction recovery facilities."

The issue gained interest after a Supreme Court ruling in June overturned the Roe vs Wade decision that for decades guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion. The technology industry has fretted police or other entities could access customers' search history, geolocation and other information revealing pregnancy plans.

The lawsuit seeks to halt Kochava's sale of sensitive geolocation data and require the company to delete the sensitive geolocation information it has collected.

Kochava did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"Where consumers seek out health care, receive counseling, or celebrate their faith is private information that shouldn’t be sold to the highest bidder,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The FTC is taking Kochava to court to protect people’s privacy and halt the sale of their sensitive geolocation information."

The FTC said Kochava purchases vast troves of location information from other data brokers across hundreds of millions of mobile devices that is packaged into customized data. They then sell that data to clients including retailers looking at foot traffic.

The FTC alleges that Kochava failed to adequately protect its data from public exposure and until at least June "allowed anyone with little effort to obtain a large sample of sensitive data and use it without restriction."

The Kochava data FTC reviewed "included precise, timestamped location data collected from than 61 million unique mobile devices in the previous week."

The FTC lawsuit said consumers could subscribe to Kochava'a data feed through the Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services marketplace until June. The FTC lawsuit said Kochava has asserted that it

offers "rich geo data spanning billions of devices globally."

In July, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s Google said it would delete location data showing when users visit an abortion clinic, following concerns that a digital trail could inform law enforcement if someone terminates a pregnancy illegally.

Earlier this month, the FTC said it is considering writing rules to better protect Americans' privacy and crack down on businesses that collect far-reaching personal information without consumers' full understanding.