An AP report details how law enforcement is using the Fog Reveal app to search hundreds of billions of records housed within 250 million mobile devices. They harness the data to merge with public records creating pinpoint locations, which weave a pattern known that investigators call pattern-of-life.
Fog Reveal differs from other location technologies used by police agencies. It follows and tracks phones and devices through specific advertising IDs which are numbers assigned to each device.
These numbers do not contain the name of the phone’s user but can be traced to homes and workplaces to help police establish pattern-of-life analyses.
Police agencies from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina are using the cellphone tracking tool. It cost less than $10,000 for a one-year license.
Cops can buy large amounts of location data on private citizens and track people’s movements over at least 3 years back. And no search warrant is required.
The app’s parent company, Fog Data Science LLC is a data broker headquartered in Leesburg, Virginia. And has offices in New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas.