CDC used taxpayer dollars to buy citizens’ phone location data for COVID tracking

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has been tracking Americans’ day-to-day whereabouts using location data it has bought from the data broker company SafeGraph.

A $420,000 purchase by the federal agency included access to one years worth of data from tens of millions of cell phones, which was recently discovered in documents obtained by Motherboard. 

The data is being used by the CDC to analyze the compliance of curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of agency policy in the Navajo Nation.

When buying the information, the CDC cited Covid-19 as a reason for the purchase, writing that the data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.” However, it also cited the data would be available for “agency-wide use and will support numerous CDC priorities.”

Although the type of data the CDC bought was aggregated – designed to follow trends that emerge from the movements of groups of people – researchers and other critics say such data can be used to track specific people.

Our smartphones have become a tool for the federal government to track our every move. Location data on our phones is able to show where a person lives, works and routinely goes. 

Last fall the CDC published a report on stay-at-home orders and population movement trends from a different batch of SafeGraph data. This begs the question – what else are they tracking that we just don’t know about?

Our society has become so complicit with privacy invasions through our phones because it’s so easy to forget that every app and web browser is constantly collecting data to either sell or use for their own benefit. 

Is this really what we need our federal government focused on? Not to mention a failed health agency that continues to abuse its power and confuse the public with politically motivated ‘guidance.’

Nobody needs Dr. Fauci, who has disappeared from the spotlight, watching their every move.

This is just another example of Big Brother’s overreaching powers being used against the people the government is supposed to represent. The people inside the government need a reality check when it comes to their jobs and our privacy.

Using Article V of the Constitution, a Convention of States can kick out federal officials who have been a part of the swamp for far too long by implementing term limits and also stop the wasteful spending. Most importantly, a convention can allow the states to take some of the power away from the federal government and put it back into the hands of the people. 

It’s time we do something about the never-ending problems inside Washington, and Convention of States will make change happen.

Sign the petition below to show your support.