It's too easy for bounty hunters to get your phone location data

Prices are basically low as well. Microbilt can provide basic location info for $ 5 per unit, and $ 13 for live tracking. Retailers tend to walk the price of winning, but it's still low enough for a particular person to afford it. In Motherboard s test case, it cost $ 300 to get information exactly within one-third of a mile.

Many of the companies involved rely on privacy violations. Microbilt said it required clients to get consent and said Motherboard was an example of abuse it was not familiar with. It also drew web documents related to mobile placement. AT&T and T-Mobile, meanwhile, cut off Microbilt's access. "We only allow sharing of a location when a customer gives permission for cases such as fraud prevention or emergency assistance, or when required by law," an AT&T spokesman said. "Over the past few months, as we have committed ourselves to doing, we have put everything else in place.

Sprint said privacy and security were a "top priority", emphasizing that it does not have a direct relationship with Microbilt, but did not outline how the data could end up in Microbil's hands. Verizon, meanwhile, did not send directly to Microbilt told Engadget that it solved "similar issues" in the first part of 201[ads1]8. It can be published by Motherboard its experience. Microbilt suggested that the service would work for all operators, but the intermediary involved could not or would not search for Verizon users.

The survey shows that location data is not all that is carefully guarded and that certain people can get the data if they are willing to pay. And it doesn't take much to see why that might be a problem. Don't bother with bounty hunters – this can let stalkers know your coarse whereabouts or reveal politicians' travel patterns. Until carriers can guarantee that data is not in the wrong hands, this represents a brilliant privacy hole.