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US Military Disables Ad Trackers On Devices To Protect Troops

2026-09-07 | original
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Why This Matters

The US military says it has disabled advertising IDs on troops' computers and phones after reports that adversaries could simply buy commercially available location data to track American forces. It's a stark demonstration that the data broker economy is now a national security problem, not just a privacy annoyance. Lawmakers say the Pentagon's mitigations still fall short, and the underlying market remains legal and open to anyone with a credit card.

Key Takeaways
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Slashdot reader DeanonymizedCoward writes: Reuters reports that the US Military is disabling ad tracking on devices, to prevent adversaries from buying publicly-available tracking data to assist in targeting troops. Military officials say that they have disabled trackers on a variety of computers and mobile devices, according to letters released on Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, and following reports that commercially-available tracking data has been used to target troops in the Middle East....

Wyden said in a statement that it was clear that the military's efforts "have not been effective at neutralizing this threat." U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, said that U.S. enemies "should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops." Rep. Harrigan remains silent as to the larger question of whether the general public should be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track anyone they please.

"The Pentagon said in an email it would respond to the lawmakers directly," Reuters reports:

The Army said in a statement that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers "since before 2021" but that Android and Apple mobile devices had only had it disabled by default "since at least February 2026...." The effort to reduce the location data generated by smartphones comes as military officials weigh increasingly strict restrictions on phone use overall. In July, Reuters reported that some deployed personnel in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones amid concerns that mobile videos they were posting to the internet were helping Iran target American bases in the region.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Explore topics: ad tracking us military ron wyden pentagon advertising ids
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