How Your Smartphone Apps Became Government Informants

A data broker called Gravy Analytics compiled a list of 1,238 applications that feed location data into its surveillance apparatus. The spreadsheet, obtained by 404 Media and Wired through a Freedom of Information Act request, exposes the mundane reality of modern surveillance infrastructure. Jigsaw puzzles, weather apps, and Muslim prayer time calculators all participate in the same data harvesting operation that helps government agencies track American citizens without warrants.

Apps embed software development kits from companies like Gravy Analytics into their code. The mechanics are straightforward. These SDKs continuously collect GPS coordinates, Wi-Fi connection points, and Bluetooth signals from users' phones. The data flows to Gravy Analytics, which operates a product called Venntel that packages this information for government consumption. No warrant required, no probable cause needed, just a subscription fee.

Multiple federal agencies have purchased Venntel's services. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has spent substantial sums tracking immigrant populations. The Internal Revenue Service bought access. The Drug Enforcement Administration subscribed. Customs and Border Protection maintains accounts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation uses the service. The agencies collectively spent millions on location tracking data that would otherwise require warrants to obtain.

The application list reads like someone's actual phone. Waze provides navigation while simultaneously reporting every destination to data brokers. Muslim Pro, an Islamic prayer and Qibla direction app used by millions, sold its users' location data until public outcry forced them to claim they stopped. GasBuddy helps people find cheap fuel and tracks every gas station they visit. Tinder users looking for dates create permanent records of their movements that government agencies can purchase.

Senator Ron Wyden obtained the documents through oversight requests and has been vocal about the constitutional implications. The Fourth Amendment supposedly protects against unreasonable searches, but purchasing data from private companies apparently doesn't count as a search in the government's interpretation. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States that accessing historical cell phone location records requires a warrant. The government's response was to simply buy similar data from private brokers instead.

The precision of this surveillance exceeds traditional tracking methods. Venntel claims its data can identify devices within specific buildings and track their movements over extended periods. Gravy Analytics markets the ability to create "geofences" around locations and identify every device that enters those boundaries. Immigration enforcement has used this capability to map out immigrant communities and track individuals for deportation operations.

Privacy policies provide legal cover without meaningful disclosure. These documents run thousands of words and deliberately obscure the most invasive practices behind technical language about "trusted partners" and "service providers." The average person installing a weather app has no reason to expect that checking tomorrow's forecast creates a permanent government-accessible record of their location.

The business model depends on volume. Each individual user's data might sell for fractions of a cent, but aggregate millions of users across hundreds of applications, and Gravy Analytics built a multimillion-dollar enterprise selling surveillance capabilities to government agencies. Recent legal and regulatory pressure has impacted their operations, though the fundamental business model persists.

Some applications have exited the data sharing arrangements following media exposure. Muslim Pro announced they severed ties with data brokers after the revelations. Other apps simply updated their privacy policies to provide slightly more disclosure while continuing the same data collection. The fundamental infrastructure remains intact, waiting for public attention to shift elsewhere.

Phone contain a digital surveillance device more sophisticated than anything the Stasi could have imagined. The difference is that people are installing it voluntarily.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.

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