In December 2019, The New York Times Privacy Project analysed smartphone location data to explore privacy-related concerns associated with companies tracking and recording the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones across the globe. Each piece of information in the data file they analysed represented the precise location of a single smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017.

Their analysis highlights the serious privacy and surveillance related concerns with this level of tracking and poses questions about what such precise, continuous human tracking might mean in the hands of corporations and the government. The investigation also explored the ecosystem of companies involved with tracking and storing this data, including telecom companies and location data companies, and noted that in the United States, it is currently perfectly legal to collect and sell this information. The journalists working on this research identified three claims that companies that collect this information make: People consent to be tracked, the data is anonymous and the data is secure. According to the data they analysed and their review of company practices, they do not believe that any of these claims hold true.

In absence of a federal privacy law in the United States, this study claims that the industry has largely relied on self-regulation. The Mobile Marketing Association, along with many other data location and marketing companies, has drafted a pledge intended to improve its self-regulation, which is slated to be released in 2020. [also refers to AT&T, Amazon, Facebook, Factual, Foursquare, Google, VeraSafe, VenPath & Verizon]