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Your smartphone is likely being tracked by a tool called Locate X. Law enforcement and other U.S. state agencies use it. And they don't need a warrant to track you either.

This may or may not exactly be news to you. Locate X, created by a data surveillance company called Babel Street, previously received coverage in 2020. At the time, numerous reports uncovered a Secret Service document concerning the agency's contract with the company for usage of the tool.

However, 404 Media has a new look at the tool which includes a trial run of the program in action – and it's concerning to say the least.

In the trial, according to 404 Media, Locate X was able to focus on an individual cell phone which is displayed as a red dot in the tool. 

The tool tracked the cell phone from an apparent residence in Alabama to a Lowe's store, then along the highway to a church, and then eventually to an abortion clinic in Florida. The red dot stayed at the abortion clinic for two hours before heading back to the apparent residence. The tool tracked the phone to the clinic just one single time.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Alabama has outright banned abortion in most cases. Republican-run states that have outlawed abortion, including Alabama, have sought out further criminalization for those seeking abortions out-of-state in places like Florida where it's heavily restricted but still legal up to a certain point.

The cell phone tracking history provided above was all obtained without a warrant. It's worth noting that the tool alone cannot identify a user connected to the phone, but law enforcement could certainly use additional tools at agencies' disposals to identify a user.

In addition, the usage of Locate X for 404 Media's piece wasn't provided by law enforcement or a state agency. The trial was accessed directly through Babel Street by data removal company Atlas Privacy. The company, which is currently suing data brokers that enable tools like Locate X, was able to obtain a trial by simply saying it was a private investigation agency. No restrictions were placed on the trial.

As 404 Media points out, companies like Apple and Google have placed extra emphasis in recent years on securing users' location data on iPhones and Android devices. However, third-party apps, advertisers, and data brokers still collect varying degrees of information from users which make tools like Locate X possible.

As Krebs on Security reports, last week, Atlas Privacy filed a lawsuit against Babel Street, alleging that it is breaking a New Jersey law allowing law enforcement, government officials, and their families to be completely removed from data brokers' records.

If you're currently concerned about your cell phone being used to track your location via tools like Locate X, for now you can deny mobile apps' requests to track.

With 12 full days left until the 2024 U.S. presidential election, there are still concerns about if Meta can properly moderate political content on its platforms.

Two months ago, a Facebook user put the faces of presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on top of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels' characters in the Dumb and Dumber movie poster. The poster features Carrey and Daniels' characters grabbing each other's nipples — you know the one. The user then captioned it with the emojis "🤷‍♂️🖕🖕."

Meta removed the post because it went against the platform's Bullying and Harassment Community Standard, specifically because that standard doesn't allow "derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings." The user appealed Meta's decision, which moved the decision up to Meta's Oversight Board. After that, Meta "determined its removal was incorrect, restoring the post to Facebook."

Meta's oversight board is a group with more than 20 members, including academics, policymakers, and journalists, and this group makes content moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram. The board wrote that Meta's handling of this post gives them "serious concerns" about Meta's ability to moderate political content on its platforms.

"This post is nothing more than a commonplace satirical image of prominent politicians and is instantly recognizable as such," the board wrote. It continued:

In the context of elections, the Board has previously recommended that Meta should develop a framework for evaluating its election integrity efforts in order to provide the company with relevant data to improve its content moderation system as a whole and decide how to best employ its resources in electoral contexts.

It then referred to a previous case surrounding a general in Brazil who, amid that country's 2022 elections, called on activists to "hit the streets" — a remark tied to protesters storming Brazil's National Congress and Supreme Court. The board at the time made the opposite determination: that Meta failed by not removing the general's remarks in time to avoid adding to a volatile situation. The board, apparently, wants to see progress on the creation of a system of rules that would cover that past false negative, as well as this false positive.

Its statement continued:

Meta has reported progress on implementing this recommendation. Nonetheless, the company’s failure to recognize the nature of this post and treat it accordingly raises serious concerns about the systems and resources Meta has in place to effectively make content determinations in such electoral contexts.

The board wrote that it sees an "overenforcement of Meta’s Bullying and Harassment policy with respect to satire and political speech in the form of a non-sexualized derogatory depiction of political figures." It says this overenforcement could "lead to the excessive removal of political speech and undermine the ability to criticize government officials and political candidates, including in a sarcastic manner."