The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing mobile attribution and analytics company Kochava for selling sensitive location data, including information that could reveal people who are having or planning to have an abortion.

The commission accused Kochava of failing to add separate privacy protections to location data, much of which comes from phones without the knowledge of the owners. The companies' data allows you to determine visits to reproductive health clinics, places of worship, shelters for the homeless and victims of domestic violence, and drug treatment centers, the FTC said in a press release.

By selling people-tracking data, Kochava allows others to identify people and subject them to stigma, harassment, discrimination, job loss, and violence. The commission requires the company to stop selling sensitive data and delete all collected information.

Last month, the FTC vowed to halt location sharing over abortion privacy concerns after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In May, Motherboard reported that brokers were selling access to geolocation data around reproductive health clinics, jeopardizing the privacy of their visitors, as well as exposing them to harassment and lawsuits.

Under pressure from Senator Elizabeth Warren and other politicians, data brokers SafeGraph and Placer.ai vowed to end the practice. Google has announced that it will automatically delete visits to clinics and other important places.

According to the FTC, Kochava has made it easy, and in some cases free, to track sensitive data. Although the company's services cost thousands of dollars, they offer a free trial with minimal steps. It was this option that allowed the commission to identify the visitor to the women's clinic and associate her home address, which probably led to the disclosure of the identity. In another case, the FTC was able to identify a phone whose owner was staying overnight at a pregnancy shelter. The commission urged Kochava to add security measures around important locations.

Kochava denied the accusations, saying that it works in accordance with all rules and laws, including those related to privacy.

bbabo.Net