US Military Disables Ad Trackers on Troops' Devices Amid Security Concerns
The US military disabled advertising tracking on government-issued phones and computers to protect troops' locations from being exploited by adversaries.
The Air Force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two months ago. US Special Operations Command said it had recently disabled them on its Windows devices. Similar letters from the Army and Navy said they had disabled advertising IDs on military devices but gave no indication of when. The Army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year, and in a statement it said Windows computers had been blocked since before 2021, while Android and Apple mobile devices had only had the identifiers disabled by default since at least February 2026. TechCrunch, citing the letter, said the Marine Corps also disabled advertising tracking across its government-issued devices.
The restrictions affect Apple and Android phones as well as Windows computers managed across the military enterprise network. Mobile advertising IDs, or MAIDs, are unique identifiers tied to specific devices that can track a person's activity across apps and pinpoint physical location. Disabling them makes it harder for data brokers to connect a device's location to an identifiable person.
Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has pressed the Pentagon on the location-data threat for months. He and Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, sent a letter to the Pentagon on Friday asking for an investigation into whether the military properly countered the dangers of the location-data trade. Wyden said in a statement that it was clear the military’s efforts "have not been effective at neutralizing this threat." Harrigan said US enemies "should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops." The Pentagon said it would respond to the lawmakers directly.
The action comes amid growing concern that location data collected by the advertising industry and sold by data brokers can be used to locate and target deployed service members. In July, Reuters reported that some US troops in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones over concerns that videos they posted online were helping adversaries target American bases. The Air Force and Special Operations Command declined further comment, and the Navy did not return messages seeking comment.
Zach Edwards, co-founder of the privacy-focused technology company Decryptads, said disabling advertising IDs on military devices was "definitely a positive thing." The restrictions will help ensure troops’ locations are not included in bulk data sales, he said, but he cautioned that personnel might still be tracked through other complicated methods, such as combining technical device details with network data or location information.
TechCrunch reported that the US intelligence community and the FBI have confirmed they buy commercially available data for surveillance and intelligence collection without a warrant, underscoring the broader market for such information.