Last month, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it was taking action against Gravy Analytics Inc. and its subsidiary Venntel Inc. for unlawfully tracking and selling sensitive location data from users, including selling data about consumers’ visits to health-related locations and places of worship. Under a proposed order, Gravy Analytics and Venntel will be prohibited from selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data in any product or service, and must establish a sensitive data location program.
As if that wasn’t enough trouble for the firms, it appears they have now been hacked. 404Media reports:
Hackers claim to have compromised Gravy Analytics, the parent company of Venntel which has sold masses of smartphone location data to the U.S. government. The hackers said they have stolen a massive amount of data, including customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data harvested from smartphones which show peoples’ precise movements, and they are threatening to publish the data publicly.
The news is a crystalizing moment for the location data industry. For years, companies have harvested location information from smartphones, either through ordinary apps or the advertising ecosystem, and then built products based on that data or sold it to others. In many cases, those customers include the U.S. government, with arms of the military, DHS, the IRS, and FBI using it for various purposes. But collecting that data presents an attractive target to hackers.
“A location data broker like Gravy Analytics getting hacked is the nightmare scenario all privacy advocates have feared and warned about.
Read more at 404Media.
