Where does your info go? US lawsuit gives peek into shadowy world of data brokers

Now, a new lawsuit is giving consumers an unprecedented peek into this opaque world, and illuminating just how easily a data broker can lose control of the user information it collects.

X-Mode and NybSys did not respond to a request for comment.

X-Mode has faced its own controversy in the past over data handling practices, after Motherboard revealed in 2020 that the company sold location data it collected to military contractors. Some of the companies X-Mode collected location data from included apps such as the Muslim prayer app MuslimPro which are geared toward groups disproportionately targeted by surveillance and law enforcement. While companies may argue that data is anonymized or aggregated before being shared, data from apps like MuslimPro that service a single demographic can be easily used to target these groups, particularly in the hands of law enforcement. (MuslimPro said it stopped sharing data with X-Mode after the story was published.)

Chris Gilliard, a fellow and professor at Macomb Community College in Michigan, says this kind of uncertainty is common in an industry that operates with little transparency. Much remains unknown about how data brokers like X-Mode collect and handle personal data, and consumers are often left to piece together information about where their data could end up.

According to the lawsuit, X-Mode says its customers use the data for both commercial and research purposes including tracking the spread of Covid-19 across state lines.