More on the Bounty Hunter Location Data Story

There’s more to the bounty hunter location data story that Motherboard reported on earlier this month. One of the data brokers involved was Zumigo.

[Bounty Hunter Successfully Tracked Down a Phone]

Zumigo and the FCC

Zumigo is a data broker that gets location data directly from carriers and sells it for a profit. And to the surprise of no one, the company lobbied the FCC in 2017 against user consent requirements for data sharing.

A presentation slide found by Motherboard says:

As breaches become more prevalent and as consumers rely more on mobile phones, there is a tipping point where financial and personal protections begin to equal, or outweigh, privacy concerns.

Another slide said:

Remove the consent requirement of stating that information is being released by the ‘carrier.’ Instead, allow more flexible language, such as:—‘You authorize the bank and its service providers to use your mobile account for verifying your identity and protecting you from fraud. Make the release of carrier data opt-out, rather than opt-in, when it is being used to prevent fraud and identity theft.

Zumigo’s angle is that it’s a fraud prevention company that uses location data to figure out if a credit card transaction should be labeled as fraudulent. But the company also wants to profit off the data and use it for marketing, according to CEO Chirag Bakshi.

[Here’s How to Stop Google from Tracking Your Location]

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