FBI Director Kash Patel informed lawmakers on Wednesday that the agency has resumed acquiring extensive amounts of Americans’ data and location histories to support federal investigations.
This marks the first confirmation since 2023 that the FBI is purchasing access to individuals’ data from brokers, who gather this information, including location data, from regular consumer apps and games, according to Politico. At that time, then-FBI director Christopher Wray had told senators that the agency had previously purchased location data but was not actively acquiring it.
When questioned by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, about the FBI’s commitment to refraining from buying Americans’ location data, Patel responded that the agency “uses all tools … to do our mission.”
Patel further explained, “We do purchase commercially available information that is consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act — and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us,” in his testimony on Wednesday.
Wyden criticized the practice of purchasing Americans’ information without a warrant as an “outrageous end-run around the Fourth Amendment,” referencing the constitutional law that protects individuals in the U.S. from unwarranted searches and seizures of data.
A spokesperson for the FBI did not address inquiries about the agency’s acquisition of commercial data, including the frequency of obtaining location data and the brokers involved.
Typically, government agencies must obtain a judge’s authorization for a search warrant based on evidence of a crime to access private information from tech or phone companies. Recently, however, U.S. agencies have bypassed this legal requirement by purchasing commercially available data from companies that gather vast amounts of location data from phone apps or other tracking technologies.
An example includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection acquiring data from real-time bidding services, as highlighted by a document from 404 Media. These technologies are integral to the mobile and web advertising sector, collecting information such as location and other identifiable data for ad targeting. Surveillance firms can track this process, gather user location data, and potentially sell it to brokers or federal agencies, avoiding the need for a warrant.
The FBI asserts that it does not require a warrant to use this data in federal investigations, although this legal interpretation has not been judicially evaluated.
Last week, Wyden and several other lawmakers introduced a bipartisan, bicameral bill known as the Government Surveillance Reform Act, which would require federal agencies to obtain a court-authorized warrant before purchasing Americans’ information from data brokers.
