Webloc is a surveillance system sold by Penlink to law enforcement agencies. It uses location data gathered through ordinary smartphone apps - including weather, games, email and religious apps - to map phones’ movements. Company materials say it can search billions of location points, look back as far as a year, update hourly, and identify every device present at a chosen place and time. The system originated with Israeli company Cobwebs, which Penlink’s private-equity owner acquired in 2023. Licenses start at about $100,000 annually, and customers include US federal, state and local agencies as well as police and security bodies in several other countries.
The central concern is that authorities can buy commercially collected location data without the warrant required to obtain similar records from phone companies, despite the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling on location privacy. The Justice Department argues that the warrant rule does not cover purchased data, leaving the legal limits unresolved. ICE spent about $9 million on contracts that included Webloc, while Tucson police used it in investigations ranging from burglaries to an abduction; the department’s license has since expired. Penlink says the tool supports lawful public-safety work, such as finding missing children and investigating trafficking, and is restricted to government clients. Civil-liberties advocates warn that its broad reach and weak oversight risk tracking people with no legitimate connection to an investigation, and that military-style surveillance is spreading to local police.
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