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An Israeli firm called Nuvaid has been collecting location data on billions of people via their phones and spyware injected using Google ads, and selling the data on to different global security agencies.

Targeted ads target targets: Patternz and Nuviad enable potentially hostile governments to track individuals by misusing ad bidding.

[It] starts with ads … and ends with the apps’ users being swept up into a powerful mass monitoring tool advertised to national security agencies that can track the physical location, hobbies, and family members of people. The bidding process reveals how many users are available which match.…The problem is that the security services can pose as an ad bidder, put in a massively-specific set of target criteria – so specific that it will identify particular individuals – and then obtain a vast amount of sensitive data. … The scum that trade in personal data are as ruthless as the Ferengi, and they’ll sell to marketers and insurance companies and the police and Uncle Sam and the CCP, if the price is right.

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