It turns out hostile forces bought advertising location data to track and surveil U.S. military personnel

U.S. Central Command told lawmakers that hostile actors have used commercial location data from data brokers to target or monitor U.S. personnel in combat zones.

The data can expose where service members live, work, and travel, creating serious operational security risks.

Lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Wyden, are pressing the Pentagon to disable ad IDs on military devices and turn off location sharing by default.

They also criticized the ad-tech and data-broker ecosystem as a national security threat.