Journalists in Europe have discovered that commercially sold mobile phone location data can be used to track top European Union officials, exposing gaps in data enforcement despite the continent’s stringent privacy laws.
According to a report by Netzpolitik, a coalition of reporters obtained a sample dataset from a data broker containing 278 million location data points from devices around Belgium, including phones belonging to senior EU officials and employees of the European Commission. The dataset revealed precise location histories, allowing journalists to identify hundreds of devices in sensitive areas, such as EU institutions in Brussels.
The investigation found 2,000 location markers linked to 264 officials’ devices, and 5,800 location points from more than 750 devices associated with the European Parliament. Much of this data originates from ordinary mobile apps that collect user location information, which is later sold to data brokers. Those brokers, in turn, resell the information to governments and military clients.
In response, EU officials expressed concern about the trade of citizens’ and officials’ location data and have issued new internal guidance aimed at reducing tracking risks. The findings have raised questions about enforcement under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe’s flagship privacy law, which remains inconsistently applied to the growing data brokerage industry.
Data brokers have become part of a billion-dollar global market, built on the sale and exchange of sensitive personal information. Privacy experts warn that this ecosystem allows extensive monitoring of individuals’ movements and behaviors, even in regions with strong privacy protections.
To limit such tracking, Apple users can anonymize their device identifiers, while Android users can regularly reset theirs, reducing data linkage over time. Still, researchers say such measures offer only partial protection.
The report also noted that in 2025, U.S.-based Gravy Analytics suffered a data breach exposing detailed location histories of tens of millions of people, including records showing where individuals lived, worked, and traveled — data that could be used to trace recent movements.
Featured image credits: Freepik
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