US lawmakers have asked the Defense Department's Inspector General to investigate why commercially available location data can still be used to track American military personnel, despite policies meant to stop it. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Pat Harrigan raised concerns that troops' movements remain identifiable through data sold by brokers, even though several military branches have disabled advertising identifiers on government-issued phones. The issue matters because such data could allow adversaries to pinpoint where troops gather and potentially target those locations, a risk the Pentagon has reportedly known about since at least 2016.

In May, Wyden, Harrigan and twelve other members of Congress had urged the Defense Department to disable advertising identifiers, which are used by mobile apps and ad networks to track devices, on both government and personal devices brought onto military facilities or taken overseas. The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Special Operations Command have since confirmed they disable these identifiers on issued devices, yet reports suggest military location data is still being sold. The lawmakers suggest possible explanations, including that some branches only implemented the change in July, that disabling identifiers alone may no longer be enough, or that personal devices belonging to staff and contractors remain a source of leaks. A threat researcher at Infoblox noted that Google and Apple have not meaningfully reformed these advertising identifiers, which continue to serve as a key link enabling data brokers to compile bulk location data for sale.