Want to know what EU officials are up to? Call a data broker

• Journalists used data brokers to track EU Commissioners in their daily lives
• This used free samples from brokers, with 5,800 location pings
• This information would be invaluable in espionage campaigns targeting the EU

If you're concerned your phone is collecting outrageous amounts of data which could be used for nefarious purposes, you’re not alone - and, in fact, you’re not wrong, either. Reporters have just revealed how easy it is to conduct sophisticated reconnaissance missions on EU Commissioners with nothing but openly traded information from data brokers.

A coalition of journalists used preview data from a data broker to ascertain the exact location of hundreds of EU officials - with over 5,800 location pings inside the European Parliament from 756 devices.

The collective was able to establish ‘movement profiles’ for EU employees, in which movements could be traced between official housing back and forth between EU parliament, supermarkets, restaurants, religious buildings, parties, and more.

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Privacy is dead

For most of us, this news will come as an unsurprising but abhorrent invasion of personal digital privacy and as a warning about the scale of mass surveillance carried out by private companies in the name of advertising (or perhaps something even more sinister).

But, for EU officials there is very real additional consideration of safety and security.

Most of us will not have to plan our escape routes in case of a political attack, nor do we have to take mitigating actions to protect ourselves from espionage campaigns - but this research reveals EU officials may have to get more serious about data privacy - quick.

These are not abstract threats, either. The advent of the war in Ukraine has seen a spike in espionage campaigns targeting western allied states, and Chinese hackers target European diplomats with Windows zero-day flaw in cyber-based intrusions.

Officials are being targeted, and technology and the commercialization of personal data has made this much easier for foreign or domestic adversaries.

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