FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

An Ad Company Is Flying Surveillance Drones Over Los Angeles

And there's nothing anybody can do about it right now.
​A camera-equipped DJI Phantom II drone. Image: Flickr/​W​alter

​An ad company's drones have been quietly collecting location information from Los Angeles residents' cell phones for nearly a month, and there's likely not much anybody can do about it without regulations in place that cover what kinds of data drones can hoover up.

Adnear, a global marketing company that specializes in collecting location data from people for companies looking to create targeted ad campaigns, has been flying a modified version of the DJI Phantom II drone over the San Fernando Valley in LA since February 4th, according to a company blog post. A sensor on the drone tracks devices by collecting data from WiFi connections and cell tower signals and uses that information to obtain their unique device IDs.

Advertisement

"The usage of drones for location data collection would tremendously reduce human intervention and ease the process of collating data in inaccessible regions," the company wrote in a blog post. "Drones will also enable quick assimilation of a large-scale location data, which would mean faster new market entry for us, since it does take much higher effort at present. We are talking a new level of scale all together."

Adnear wants to use the data to serve you hyperlocal ads based on what you're near at the moment. The company did not immediately respond to Motherboard's request for comment, and we will update this post if we hear from them.

If this still all sounds just a little ominous, that's because it is. The sensors on Adnear's drone are likely the same kind they've used on "bikes, cars, trains, and even walking up the stairs," except now they're flying over you. Using cell tower signals to uncover a device's ID sounds pretty close to what a StingRay used by police to track suspects by mimicking cell towers does. That technology works by scooping up all location information from cell phones in the area, including those from innocent people.

While Adnear's approach may not be exactly the same as a StingRay, it's close enough to cause discomfort—although, of course, Adnear is using their technology for commercial gain, not to catch criminals. The company claims that it doesn't collect any personally identifiable information, but it's hard to see how your phone's ID is anything but.

Right now, Adnear is operating quasi-legally. But any illegality would be because it ran afoul of Federal Aviation Administration commercial drone rules, not privacy ones. The FAA's proposed regulations for domestic drone use—arrived at after five years of legal limbo for drone owners—haven't gone into effect yet, and the FAA says it can still limit commercial drone operations. But even the new regulations do not cover privacy at all, instead focusing on safety measures. While regulations for airborne data collection may one day coalesce, they're not on the immediate horizon.

So, what the company is doing is creepy, but not strictly illegal.

Until then, possible solutions to avoid drone detection include leaving your phone at home and not much else. One company has suggested building a database-driven "no fly zone" for privacy-conscious folks worried about drones, but that's a pretty ridiculous idea too, since that would mean drone companies can change their products' function without user input. Some communities have tried passing local laws that limit drone surveillance, but such a proposition seems unlikely to happen quickly in LA, meaning we're probably just left waiting for the FAA. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

​UPDATE: Adnear responded to Motherboard with the following quote:

​"We do NOT [sic] collect anything from user's mobile phone using these drones. The drones are instead used to collect data (cell-tower signals and wi-fi signals) that help us to find and improve user's location when they use an app. This way we do not depend on resource hungry and slow GPS capabilities but our own location technology. Which means we do not push any messages but show in-app ads that are highly relevant to the user's location and/or profile. This in-turn is useful to the user as well as they get meaningful engaging ads, and a win for the brands.

This is the same data that Google and Apple collects driving around to provide you better location on maps, etc. We do not collect any personally identifiable information and definitely not use location without user consent. Because the app/publisher has to pass us these data and in return we pass relevant ads, which helps them stay free forever."