It probably comes as no surprise that government agencies have access to a lot of your data—in part because we hand some of it over to them directly, and in part because they are able to purchase it from data brokers that already exist to harvest, aggregate, and sell it to other companies. A recent report from 404 Media confirms that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is among those buying and using location data collected via ads to track users’ movements.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and a handful of other federal agencies have also purchased location data from brokers in recent years, but the internal document from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by 404 Media confirms that CBP has sourced its location tracking in part from real-time bidding (RTB), which is behind every online ad you are served.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes how this process
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