➡ Many apps and services, like weather apps and car services, track and sell your location data. Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are used extensively in cities to track car movements. Health data is collected and sold by companies not regulated by HIPAA. Social media aggregators and identity providers sell your online activity and personal information. Large companies like Palantir combine all this data for analysis, which can be used by government agencies. Other tools are used by police departments for investigations, combining data from multiple sources and even using AI for surveillance.

➡ Private companies can gather a lot of information about us, but we can protect ourselves by using privacy-focused products and services. This channel, which doesn’t have sponsors, relies on community support and offers products like the Brax 3 privacy phone and services like Brax Virtual Phone and bytesVPN to help you stay private. These tools can help you hide your information from data brokers. Join the community on BraxMe to learn more about privacy issues.

My friends were talking about social media and I was busy on the side when I heard them ask me, hey, Rob, are you on Instagram? They already know the answer, but were saying that to tease me. Yep, being teased by normies, obviously, I respond, hell no. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking of all the reasons why I really concerned myself with what devices and platforms I use. And frankly, I’ve lost patience in trying to explain why to normies. The main reason is the subject of this video. It’s because I don’t want my data to be part of massive surveillance databases.

I’ve talked very frequently about the black box of massive surveillance data of our every move owned by Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. And this gets more intense with AI. Today I will talk about surveillance databases, but the difference here is that I will focus on data that is collected by many, many companies that do not rely on big tech. Think about it. Even smaller companies can collect everything from location surveillance of your phones, to tracking your cars, to capturing your healthcare data. They can do this even when they have just a tiny fraction of information available to them compared to big tech.

But these are the databases that are openly sold and used by law enforcement and for corporate surveillance. So laugh at me all you want for not being on Instagram and not using iPhones and Google Androids. Chances are that I will barely be found with real data on these databases, whether from big tech or smaller companies. If they have data on me, it’s because I let them have it. If you’ve followed my channel for a while, you likely also have protected your data as well. But the normies have a lot to worry about. And while I may not tell them that to their faces, hopefully some of them will watch this video.

Let’s do a deep dive into the surveillance databases. They are likely in databases that can be sold to anyone. Stay right there. Today I’ll talk about real companies. Real companies that either broker your data for surveillance or integrate them into their surveillance tools that they provide to law enforcement and corporate customers. I believe none of these companies take their data from big tech. And I think that should worry you more because big tech has more data. Though Big tech tends to hog data for themselves, they know how valuable it is. So we’re just being exposed to a small portion here, companies with more limited sources.

And yet, as you will see, it’s a lot. And let’s be clear that these are the databases that are being sold and that any party can utilize location data, indirect source. This company was already mentioned in my Last video, Fog Data Science. They use a web portal called fogreveal.com which enables police departments to do geofencing. Geofencing is the ability to find people at specific places and times using phone location data. Basically, users start by finding any location using Google Earth. Draw a boundary area like a fence and then give a timestamp range and then the fog system will show you the hits of devices found in that area at that time identified by a phone device id.

But this can be put to more advanced uses. From there you can hone down on a particular device ID and find all the locations that user has been in. And over time it should provide a history that will reveal residents work and social patterns. In other words, with a little common sense and combined with other databases, it is devastatingly dangerous. The data from Fog Data Science appears to be sourced from a company called Ventel, which is one of the location aggregators. They buy up location data from mobile apps based on ad auctions and then transform that database into a very revealing repository.

Even without names or permanent device identifiers. They can do this because you can isolate a particular device advertising id, then find the person’s home, work and all the people they associate with physically by looking at their location patterns. Another very similar company is Safegraph. Safegraph is actually its own data broker and it spun off the data broker side into a separate entity called Verisat. Safeguard, for example, sold two years worth of location data for millions of people to the state of Illinois. Now why exactly does the state of Illinois need to do mass surveillance? I don’t know.

Safecraft became famous in a bad way because apparently the company decided to track people who who visited abortion clinics. And just like what can be done with Fog, they can then check each person’s device ID and then by looking at location history, they can find the person’s residence. And from there it should be an easy thing to find out real identities based on who lives in that location using many public records and databases like credit reports. Now Ventel, which is owned by Gravy analytics, is the data broker associated with Fog Data Science. The FTC recently prohibited Ventel from directly selling their raw data, but allows them the exception of giving access to that data to law enforcement, which of course is heavily utilized by Fogg Data Science.

While companies like Ventel and Verset may find restrictions on selling raw data directly, now they are able to do an analysis of the data for private parties as long as they are not selling the data itself. In other words, it’s okay if it’s part of a surveillance tool. I’m reminded of the political movie 2000 Mules which was partially based on location data. I don’t know which data broker provided the location data they used. The premise, I believe was that people who repeatedly approach particular ballot boxes over a period of time suggested suggested the possibility of election fraud.

Based on the location tracking capabilities I’ve discussed, and based on the availability of these location data brokers, even using something as simple as advertising IDs, this would have been doable. There have been many debunking articles in the press that claim you cannot be tracked within 6ft using this type of location data. Well, I can tell you that those with a political bias are are wrong. While not everyone is included in these databases and not all activities can be recorded, if you are recorded then it will likely be quite accurate. Another example company that provides location intelligence is Xtrack IO.

This company presumably sells location data to businesses like the food industry, retail, healthcare and so on to establish traffic patterns. There are many companies like this though this is used for business intelligence. Just like with fog data science, you can switch from watching a particular location to watching a particular device and then suddenly you get a different point of view. I gave the example of an investor looking at the number of location hits inside Tesla plants and from that the investor was able to estimate the growth in employee count which was inside information that no one else had.

This person made a killing in the market years ago as having that inside information gave him an advantage. This is the kind of spying that is possible now. I’m even wondering if anyone is using this for military intelligence by foreign governments, Location providers, Direct source I know this industry well, though it has changed players quite dramatically since 2007 or so. In the early stages of the iPhone devices themselves did Wi fi triangulation and collected those requests for location. This is a little different than the more simplistic tech used by Ventel and Verisat. An example of such a company was Skyhook Wireless.

Because this type of data collection is direct with the device rather than through ads, additional data can be captured with the location. Back then you can subscribe to these databases and get reverse IP lookup capability. In other words, if I know your IP address I can get your exact location, particularly residences. This is much more revealing than advertising IDs, but this industry has changed. Skyhook Wireless is defunct now. It was bought by Qualcomm in 2022 and for a long time the hardware for Wi fi triangulation built into iPhones were based on Skyhook technology. Google used mostly software for WI fi triangulation and today the hardware is mostly integrated in Broadcom SoCs which combine GPS, Wi Fi and Bluetooth just for historical reference.

Another big player in location tracking washere.com and for a while I think they were also used by Apple as a location and map provider. Nowadays the two main location providers for WI fi triangulation are just Google and Apple. The particular technology is called near location provider or NLP and is built into every phone. Hear.com apparently focuses on maps now, so it is the technology used by many car companies for mapping technology and potentially to track car locations direct from phones. Locations can then be provided to apps that have been given location permission. There is an extra danger with apps that sell their location data directly.

Instead of just relying on sales of ads, their locations are more accurately identified with additional data. For example, they can capture IP addresses, login email, phone numbers and so on. Email in addition to location. A possible example of this is the app weather channel and weather.com which is owned by IBM. If your app is heavily used by a large population and you require location permissions, then a single app could be a direct source of data for large numbers of people. Big tech by the way has access to even more detailed locations like 24. 7 locations and cannot be turned off.

Combined with IMEI, MD, Mac addresses, IP addresses, Google ID and so on. Access to this can be provided to three letter agencies. OnStar Embrace Lexus link A specific location provider that has been accused of selling their data is OnStar. They had to stop selling their car location data after being targeted by the FTC. OnStar is a premium emergency and concierge service that is available for GM cards like Cadillacs and other examples of similar products are embraced for Mercedes Benz and Lexus. Link for Lexus. These presumably premium services do direct tracking of car locations, but what is not known is that most newer cars have a built in cell connection which is what these services utilize.

So even without a premium subscription to the emergency services concierge, your car locations are tracked by by the car maker. This is likely true of all cars that have some sort of navigation device, not just Teslas. You must therefore assume that all newer cars are trackable. By the way, it should be worth mentioning that one of the major sources of location data used by Ventel and their set is the app Waze. So if you enable location permission on Waze, then it should be assumed that your vehicle movements are known and sold. Automated License Plate Readers Another category of Surveillance tool is based on automated license plate reader technology or ALPR.

On a small scale, ALPRs are frequently encountered in parking lots. After you pay your parking fee at a remote pay machine, you will find that the parking gate will automatically open as you approach it, which without putting your ticket in. And this is based on ALPR reading your license plate on the way in and reading your license plate on the way out. But the more extensive use of ALPR is in large cities, and I have to be honest in saying I’m shocked at how extensively this technology is used. A leading company in this field is digital recognition network drn, which is owned by Vast International Holdings.

They claim to scan 350 million plates each month in over 300 markets. Other examples of companies selling this technology are Flock Technologies, Pulsar by utility and plate Recognizer. Flock appears to be used in Los Angeles and lots of places in California. There are thousands of these devices everywhere. For example, in the neighboring county of Riverside, California, they apparently have 1600 of these flock devices installed. They’re likely in every major street. Here’s an example of one found in Costa Mesa, California, which is in Orange County. In a publicized case involving Palantir, the city of Los Angeles partnered with Palantir to find potential gang members, and they did so using data from these ALPRs.

I don’t know how many ALPRs are in Los Angeles, but I personally seen many of these devices. I just saw one installed on a nearby street in Los Angeles county is much bigger than Riverside county, so I’m guessing it’s multiples of the 1600 stated units in Riverside. The Palantir example, though, shows that the data in these databases, which are likely centralized by the technology provider like Flock or drn, is that they can be packaged as a complete database and then provide it to another entity, like in this case, Palantir. It should be safe to assume that they have the traffic patterns of every single car in Southern California and likely large cities everywhere in the US Facial recognition cameras.

While license plate readers are more common, let’s not forget the cameras. But what’s interesting is how cameras are now used to give tickets. In Culver City, California, I’ve personally seen their intersection cameras give out tickets. The cameras take a snapshot of some violation, like running a red light, blocking the intersection, or turning on red without stopping. What’s interesting though, is that the ticket has a license plate reader for the back of the vehicle. Then it captures a snapshot of the driver. Then the driver is identified via facial recognition and based on access to photos in the driver’s license database.

This is very interesting because they don’t give out the ticket to the owner of the vehicle identified by the license plate. Instead, a ticket goes directly to the driver. I see many devices that appear to be cameras on intersections and I’ve memorized the locations of these devices in my area but but many are not tied to the ticket issuing photo machine. Again, we must assume that these are all collected in mass surveillance databases likely stored by the contractors that manage this equipment Health Care Data Several companies focus on health surveillance data. This include Experian Health, Healthcare.com, oracle, Axiom and Epsilon.

These data brokers capture purchase history and any particular interest in specific conditions like allergies, arthritis, cholesterol, depression and many others. Because these companies are not healthcare providers, how they capture your interest in healthcare issues and how it is then sold is not regulated by HIPAA and they can do whatever they want. I’m not specifying how they could have collected this data without Big Tech, but it is concerning since obviously this is just one subcategory of data. In fact, another source of data are health insurance companies. These firms can look at the history of diagnosis and procedures for every health billing event.

Every health insurance company has access to this and they even have examination data for life insurance applications. By combining other surveillance data, a company like LexisNexis is actually able to provide a health risk score, so this could likely be used for underwriting people for life and health insurance and possibly even to screen employees. Social Media Aggregators and Identity Providers There are many companies now focused on being identity providers. Examples of these companies are Axiom and Intellius and a zillion others. These companies provide data about anyone based on information captured from public records and social media. This is the more massive collection of Internet activity.

As long as there is an identity found, for example like a name or phone number or email, they have enough data to actually perform the service of an identity provider. Given certain data, they can verify your information and they sell the service to various platforms. They also happily integrate data captured from well known data breaches like the Equifax or LinkedIn hack. So they can integrate real data like phone numbers and email addresses and attribute them to real identities. These entities ensure a permanence to any data found about you on the Internet. If you are cavalier about your identity and what you post online, they will sell your information to potential employers, investigators, and any private individual willing to pay intelligence services.

The next level of surveillance comes from combining all the databases available from other sources with data from public records and government records, then these larger combined databases provide a massive surveillance platform which will then be enhanced by AI. Huge players like Palantir have access to both unfettered government data and all the data from the private sources I mentioned here. From your tax history, credit history, social media history, car driving history, medical history and full location history, they can really use your data in ways that scare me. Think PSYOP level here. Palantir, of course is heavily used by government to provide data analysis.

Now here are more localized examples of full intelligence providers that use combined data from multiple sources. One used in California is Penlink, which for example is used as an investigative tool at San Joaquin’s Sheriff’s Department. They claim to be used as a security tool in over a thousand organizations. This combines case management tools with evidence collection and data analysis from available surveillance databases. Another police tool is Cobweb Technologies, which apparently was founded by prior members of of the Israeli Defense Force. This one was found to be used in Washington D.C. just to show you the capabilities of combined databases.

Apparently the D.C. homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency was surveilling people using the hashtag Black Lives matter and defund D.C. police. This included researching social media posts of targeted individuals and actual surveillance tracking using their program called Tangles. Apparently the surveillance was guided by AI together with facial recognition. Cobweb’s other clients include the US Department of Homeland Security and cities like New York, Los Angeles and the state of Texas. Another investigative full feature product is from Cellebrite, which has what they call end to end digital intelligence. They claim to be a force multiplier or for investigations with tools for digital forensics and even spy tools for mobile devices.

The possibility of extending data to actual insertion of malware like Pegasus brings this to a new level of danger. You potentially have to fear active surveillance on your phone. Summary what I’ve shown you here are real life companies with real interactions that have been captured in the media. They are not as shadowy as what Google does with its Google Sensor Vault or as opaque as the activities of the no such agency. But clearly if private companies can do so much surveillance without even involving big tech, what could this full surveillance infrastructure be like if we know the full access available? It’s obviously massive and many of you think that I’m being paranoid and I should not worry and be on Instagram.

The truth is that these companies are mostly a threat to normies, not so much to my followers. While I can’t stop being on automated license plate reader databases There’s a lot of information that’s not available about me that cannot be utilized by by these data brokers and data intelligence providers and you can be just as invisible as well folks, as many of you know, this channel does not have sponsors. Instead we rely completely on community support to keep us going. Hopefully we give you enough information that you find value. Some of you support us on patreon locals and YouTube memberships and though I don’t publicly acknowledge you for privacy reasons, you are very appreciated.

Thank you for most of our support. We instead strive to provide products and services that help you in your privacy journey. Our newest product is the Brax 3 privacy phone. This is a community project involving several companies and is currently sold on a indiegogo.com this is about to be released and we are just waiting a final version from our OS partner EODAY os. We have other products and services that can be found on our privacy social media site BraxMe. We have Brax Virtual Phone that gives you inexpensive no kyc phone numbers. We have braxmail, which offers unlimited aliases and many domains to create different identities.

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