The Federal Trade Commission has imposed a $28 million fine on Precise Analytics, a data broker that collected and sold precise geolocation data from over 90 million mobile devices without obtaining meaningful consumer consent.
The FTC's investigation revealed that the company embedded tracking SDKs in popular weather and navigation apps, harvesting location pings every 30 seconds and selling the data to advertisers, hedge funds, and law enforcement agencies.
In addition to the fine, the settlement requires the company to delete all previously collected location data and implement an opt-in consent framework verified by an independent auditor.
