Exclusive-US military turns off ad trackers on devices amid Middle East targeting reports

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – U.S. military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and statements given to Reuters, a development that follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East.

The Air Force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two months ago. U.S. Special Operations Command said in a separate letter that it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The Army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year.

Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has pressed the Pentagon on the issue for months. 

The disclosures highlight a growing national security concern: that location data collected by the advertising industry and sold by data brokers — companies that collate and resell personal data — can be used to track and target military personnel deployed to war zones.

The Air Force and Special Operations Command declined further comment. Similar letters from the Army and Navy to Wyden said they disabled advertising IDs on military devices but gave no indication of when the restrictions were imposed. The Army said in a statement that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers “since before 2021” but that Android and Apple mobile devices had only had it disabled by default “since at least February 2026.”

Messages seeking comment from the Navy went unreturned. 

The effort to reduce the location data generated by smartphones comes as military officials weigh increasingly strict restrictions on phone use overall. In July, Reuters reported that some deployed personnel in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones amid concerns that mobile videos they were posting to the internet were helping Iran target American bases in the region. 

Wyden and U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, sent a letter to the Pentagon on Friday asking for an investigation into whether the military had properly countered the dangers of the location data trade. The letter included the updates from the various service branches on their efforts to disable advertising IDs on military devices.

Wyden said in a statement that it was clear that the military’s efforts “have not been effective at neutralizing this threat.” Harrigan said that U.S. enemies “should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops.” 

The Pentagon said in an email it would respond to the lawmakers directly.

Mobile advertising IDs, often abbreviated MAID, are unique identifiers tied to specific devices that can be used to track a person’s activity across mobile apps and pinpoint their physical location.

Zach Edwards, co-founder of privacy ad tech company Decryptads, said that efforts to disable MAID on military-operated devices were “definitely a positive thing.”

The restrictions “will essentially ensure their location isn’t being included in bulk data sales being done by numerous vendors,” although he cautioned that personnel might still be tracked through apps in other more complicated ways, for example by triangulating technical device details with network data or location information. 

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Saad Sayeed)