US soldier's personal phones allowed enemies to track positions and target troops in real time, Pentagon reveals

The Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia.

• The Pentagon has confirmed that foreign adversaries of the US exploited commercially available smartphone location data to track US troops in war zones
• This disclosure comes despite warnings nearly a decade ago about the risks of smartphone tracking by government contractors
• The issue persists because the DoD does not require users to disable geolocation in war zones, and advertising IDs are still transmitted by smartphones even when personalized ads are disabled

Foreign adversaries of the United States have been able to purchase commercial smartphone data that allows them to track troop movements in theaters of war, including the Middle East, due to a lack of oversight by the Department of Defense (DoD), even as the Pentagon has confirmed such incidents.