The FBI has resumed buying bundles of data and location histories of Americans to aid federal investigations, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, testified to lawmakers on Wednesday.
This is the first time since 2023 that the FBI confirmed it was buying access to people’s data collected by data brokers, who source much of their information — including location data — from simple phone apps and consumer games. per Politico. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told senators that the service had bought access to people’s location data in the past but that he was not actively buying it.
Asked by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, if the FBI would commit to not buying Americans’ location data, Patel said the agency “uses all the tools … to do our mission.”
“We buy commercially available information that is consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act — and it led us to some valuable intelligence,” Patel testified Wednesday.
Wyden said buying information on Americans without a warrant was an “outrageous loophole around the Fourth Amendment,” referring to the constitutional law that protects people in America from device searches and data seizures.
When reached by TechCrunch, an FBI spokesperson declined to comment beyond Patel’s remarks and did not respond to questions about the agency’s purchase of commercial data, including how often the FBI received location data and from which brokers.
Government agencies usually have to get a judge to approve a search warrant based on some evidence of a crime before they can demand personal information about an individual from a technology or phone company. But in recent years, US agencies have circumvented this legal step by buying commercially available data from companies that collect large volumes of people’s location data originally from phone apps or other commercial tracking technology.
For example, U.S. Customs and Border Protection purchased a batch of data derived from real-time bidding, or RTB, services, according to a document obtained by 404 Media. These technologies are central to the mobile and web advertising industry and collect information such as location and other identifiable data that is used to target people who view ads. Surveillance companies can monitor this process and collect information about a user’s location, then potentially sell that data to brokers or federal agencies looking to bypass the warrant process.
The FBI claims it does not need a warrant to use this information for federal investigations. although this legal theory has yet to be tested in court.
Last week, Wyden and several other lawmakers presented a bipartisan, bicameral bill called the Government Surveillance Reform Act, which would, among other things, require a court warrant before federal agencies could buy Americans’ information from data brokers.
Updated with a response from the FBI.
