It became clear that this data — collected by smartphone apps and then fed into a dizzyingly complex digital advertising ecosystem — was a liability to national security, to free assembly and to citizens living mundane lives. It provided an intimate record of people whether they were visiting drug treatment centers, strip clubs, casinos, abortion clinics or places of worship.
This is fascinating and chilling. It is from a left-wing perspective. We share it because it is eye-opening about big tech, about the response to what happened at the Capitol, and more. Read, pray, and share your thoughts in the comments . . .

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In 2019, a source came to us with a digital file containing the precise locations of more than 12 million individual smartphones for several months in 2016 and 2017. The data is supposed to be anonymous, but it isn’t. . . .

Now, one year later, we’re in a very similar position. But it’s far worse.

A source has provided another data set, this time following the smartphones of thousands of Trump supporters, rioters and passers-by in Washington, D.C., on January 6, as Donald Trump’s political rally turned into a violent insurrection. At least five people died because of the riot at the Capitol. Key to bringing the mob to justice has been the event’s digital detritus: location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing. . . .

The data we were given showed what some in the tech industry might call a God-view vantage of that dark day. It included about 100,000 location pings for thousands of smartphones, revealing around 130 devices inside the Capitol exactly when Trump supporters were storming the building. . . .

About 40 percent of the phones tracked near the rally stage on the National Mall during the speeches were also found in and around the Capitol during the siege — a clear link between those who’d listened to the president and his allies and then marched on the building. . . .

In one instance, three members of a single family were tracked in the data.
The source shared this information, in part, because the individual was outraged by the events of Jan. 6. The source wanted answers, accountability, justice. The person was also deeply concerned about the privacy implications of this surreptitious data collection.  . . .

The data presented here is a bird’s-eye view of an event that posed a clear and grave threat to our democracy. But it tells a second story as well: One of a broken, surreptitious industry in desperate need of regulation, and of a tacit agreement we’ve entered into that threatens our individual privacy. None of this data should ever have been collected. . . .
This isRonnie Vincent.
We traced a phone inside the Capitol to Mr. Vincent’s home in Kentucky. Confirming his identity led us to his Facebook page, where we found a few photos of him standing on the steps of the building during the siege. Another photo shows a crowd standing in front of the Capitol, its doors wide open.

At the Capitol
Smartphones tracked between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. record the seige on the Capitol.

“Yes we got inside. One girl was shot by the DC cops as she was knocking on the glass. She probably will die. We stopped the voting in the house,” he wrote. . . .

When we reached him by phone, he insisted he never entered the Capitol. “There is no way that my phone shows me in there,” he said. Yet it did. . . .

While some location data is accurate to within a few feet, other data is not. Location companies can work with data derived from GPS sensors, Bluetooth signals and other sources. The quality depends on the settings of the phone and whether it is connected to Wi-Fi or a cell tower. Issues like population and building density can sometimes play a role in the quality of the data.

Mr. Vincent told us that when he wrote “we got inside,” he meant “we the people got in.”

He added, “I did not go in.” . . .
Click Here and scroll down to view Ronny Vincent’s Journey!
The data set Times Opinion examined shows how Trump supporters traveled from South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Kentucky to the nation’s capital, with pings tracing neatly along major highways, in the days before the attack. Stops at gas stations, restaurants and motels dot the route like bread crumbs, each offering corroborating details.

In many cases, these trails lead from the Capitol right back to their homes. . . .

Click Here and scroll down to view Trump Supporters Go To Washington!
In the hands of law enforcement, this data could be evidence. But at every other moment, the location data is reviewed by hedge funds, financial institutions and marketers, in an attempt to learn more about where we shop and how we live. . . .

The IDs, called mobile advertising identifiers, allow companies to track people across the internet and on apps. They are supposed to be anonymous, and smartphone owners can reset them or disable them entirely. Our findings show the promise of anonymity is a farce. Several companies offer tools to allow anyone with data to match the IDs with other databases. . . .
Click Here and scroll down to view How “Anonymous” Pings Could Be Identifiable!

One location data company, Cuebiq, publishes a list of customers that may receive the ID with precise smartphone locations. Companies listed there include household names like Adobe and Google, alongside a litany of lesser-known upstarts, like Hivestack, Mogean, Pelmorex and Ubimo. . . .

Smartphone users will never know if they are included in the data or whether their precise movements were sold. There are no laws forcing companies to disclose what the data is used for or for how long. There are no legal requirements to ever delete the data. . . .

Tip lines at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been flooded for weeks in an effort to identify participants, and detectives in Miami and other police departments are using facial recognition software. Amateur investigators on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms have launched their own identification efforts.

Law enforcement has used cellphone footage from the siege to identify participants. As of February 4, there were 181 federal cases pending against individuals involved in the Capitol Hill siege, according to an analysis by George Washington University’s program on extremism. . . .

A leak of data from the social media platform Parler also helped investigators and journalists place rioters in the building, using posts that were geotagged with GPS location data. For some, like 38-year-old Oath Keepers member Jessica Watkins, there was no need for precise location data. Her words tell the story: “Yeah. We stormed the Capitol today. Teargassed, the whole, 9. Pushed our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even,” she wrote on Parler. . . .

To focus attention only on those people present at the deadly sacking of the Capitol is to lose sight of the larger context of the campaign of incitement and lies from Mr. Trump, right-wing media and members of Congress that set the stage for it. Just as focusing on the movements of Mr. Vincent’s cellphone is to lose sight of the larger surveillance ecosystem that he — and all of us — are trapped in.

The location-tracking industry exists because those in power allow it to exist. Plenty of Americans remain oblivious to this collection through no fault of their own. But many others understand what’s happening and allow it anyway. They feel powerless to stop it or were simply seduced by the conveniences afforded in the trade-off. The dark truth is that, despite genuine concern from those paying attention, there’s little appetite to meaningfully dismantle this advertising infrastructure that undergirds unchecked corporate data collection.

This collection will only grow more sophisticated.  . . .

In our previous investigation, we wrote that Americans deserve the freedom to choose a life without surveillance and the government regulation that would make that possible. While we continue to believe the sentiment, we fear it may soon be obsolete or irrelevant. We deserve that freedom, but the window to achieve it narrows a little more each day. If we don’t act now, with great urgency, it may very well close for good.

(Excerpt from Archive Today. Article by Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson. Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

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