The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced on August 29th it will be pursuing a lawsuit against an Idaho-based location data broker named “Kochava.” Kochava aggregates sensitive and precise (down to the meter) geolocation data collected from hundreds of millions of mobile devices. Kochava’s clients use this information to identify and track mobile users’ movements and the locations they visit. Their clients keep logs of users who travel to reproductive health centers, mental care and addiction rehabilitation facilities, and domestic violence and homeless shelters. Kochava collected this data and turned it into a feed that its clients can access through a $25,000 subscription service. A free 7-day data set was also available as a trial of their services until it was shut down in June 2022. Kochava marketed this service on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace since its inception. In a description of the service, Kochava marketed itself as a product that “delivers raw latitude/longitude data with volumes around 94B+ geo transactions per month, 125 million monthly active users, and 35 million daily active users, on average observing more than 90 daily transactions per device.” The FTC has taken action against Kochava due to the potential “threats of stigma, stalking, discrimination, job loss, and even physical violence” the identified individuals could face. The lawsuit brought by the FTC could shut down Kochava’s sale of sensitive geolocation data and the company may be required to delete all of the sensitive information it has collected. In response, the data broker has sued the FTC for overreaching when the lawsuit was first announced. Kochava stated in a press release that the company would introduce a “privacy block” that aims to be “privacy-first approach to block health services locations from the Kochava Collective marketplace.” This would address some of the concerns the FTC had and could allow Kochava to continue selling other types of location data. This lawsuit is the newest development in the FTC’s mission to crack down on businesses behind mass-surveillance data. CTIX analysts are continuing to monitor the FTC’s mission and will provide updates on future developments.