Advertising Surveillance Enables Government Surveillance

We've all had the unsettling experience of seeing an ad online that reveals just how much advertisers know about our lives.

You're right to be disturbed.

Those very same online ad systems have been used by the government to warrantlessly track peoples' locations, new reporting has confirmed.

A new report gives us direct evidence that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has used location data taken from the internet advertising ecosystem to track phones.

In a document uncovered by 404 Media, CBP admits what we’ve been saying for years:

🔥The technical systems powering creepy targeted ads also allow federal agencies to track your location.

The document acknowledges that a program by the agency to use "commercially available marketing location data" for surveillance drew from the process used to select the targeted ads shown to you on nearly every website and app you visit.

In this blog post, we'll tell you what this process is,
how it can and is being used for state surveillance,
and what can be done about it
—by individuals,
by lawmakers, and
by the tech companies that enable these abuses.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/targeted-advertising-gives-your-location-government-just-ask-cbp