Some personnel at Ramstein Air Base were tracked to a local brothel (Image: Google Maps/GETTY)
A massive has resulted in the leak of phone coordinates of thousands of US intelligence and military officers – meaning their movements can be tracked easily by anyone in possession of the data.
A joint investigation conducted by , Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), and Netzpolitik.org has underlined a disturbing threat stemming from the collection of digital advertising data by US companies.
Such businesses, which operate entirely legally, have inadvertently created what is described as an “a cost-effective and reliable method for tracking American military and intelligence personnel abroad”.
The information can be used to pinpoint individuals’ whereabouts from their homes and children’s schools to sensitive locations like reinforced aircraft shelters believed to house US .
Signals from hundreds of devices were tracked within sensitive US facilities in Germany. These included suspected NSA monitoring sites, locations where Ukrainian troops were being trained during 2023, and one air force base supporting key American drone operations.
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Buchel Air Base in Germany (Image: Wikicommons)
Devices were also found in significant numbers within classified areas, exposing vulnerabilities in sites critical to US defence activities.
Alarmingly, one device, thought to be linked to an NSA or intelligence employee, transmitted coordinates from within a secure structure known as the “Tin Can,” a facility understood to be used for NSA surveillance, as revealed by Edward Snowden’s leaks.
Another device sent signals from a restricted weapons testing area, detailing movements through high-security zones used for tank manoeuvres and live munitions exercises.
More prosaically, as many as four devices which regularly pinged from Ramstein Air Base were later tracked to nearby off-base brothels, including one called called SexWorld.
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US Senator Ron Wyden (Image: Getty)
In February, BR and Netzpolitik.org obtained a free sample of this kind of data Florida-based data broker Datastream Group.
The dataset contains 3.6 billion coordinates from up to 11 million mobile advertising IDs in Germany over what it said was a 59-day span from October to December 2023.
Wired’s investigation uncovered “granular location data” from up to 12,313 devices which appeared to spend time at or close to least 11 military and intelligence sites.
It also revealed 38,474 location signals from up to 189 devices inside Buchel Air Base, where up to 15 US nuclear weapons are reportedly stored in underground bunkers.
The whereabouts of the personnel can be determined using GPS data (Image: Getty)
Ron Wyden, a US senator for Oregon, said: “The unregulated data broker industry poses a clear threat to national security.
“It is outrageous that American data brokers are selling location data collected from thousands of brave members of the armed forces who serve in harms’ way around the world.
“There is ample blame to go around but unless the incoming administration and Congress act, these kinds of abuses will keep happening, and they’ll cost service members’ lives.”
Datastream Group’s website says it offers “internet advertising data coupled with hashed emails, cookies, and mobile location data.
The company’s website now appears to have been deactivated.