US Military Disables Ad Trackers After Location Data Raises Security Concerns

The U.S. military has begun shutting down ad-trackers on government-issued phones and computers after growing concerns that commercially collected location data could be used to track American forces being deployed in the Middle East.

The disclosures, made in responses to lawmakers and confirmed to Reuters, show that the Air Force disabled advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones about two months ago. U.S. Special Operations Command said it had “recently” disabled them on Windows devices, while the Army said advertising IDs associated with mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year.

The move follows reports that commercially available location information had been used to target American military personnel in the Middle East, turning an obscure feature of the digital advertising economy into a potential battlefield vulnerability.

Mobile advertising identifiers, commonly known as MAIDs, are unique codes associated with individual devices. They allow data companies to follow activity across mobile applications and, in some circumstances, determine where a device and its user could be potentially located.

For the military, the concern is that information generated routinely by smartphones and other connected devices can enter the commercial data market, where brokers collect, aggregate and resell it.

A New Security Problem In The Data Economy

The issue has drawn sustained attention from Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, who has pressed the Pentagon for answers about the risks posed by the location-data trade.

The Army said advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers “since before 2021.” But on Android and Apple mobile devices, the Army said the identifiers had been disabled by default only “since at least February 2026.”

The different timelines across military branches underscore how unevenly the technology had been treated across the Defense Department.

Wyden and Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, asked the Pentagon on Friday to investigate whether the military had adequately addressed the risks. Their letter included responses from the military services detailing their efforts to disable advertising identifiers on government devices.

Wyden said the steps taken so far did not appear sufficient. “It was clear that the military’s efforts ‘have not been effective at neutralizing this threat,'” he said in a statement.

Harrigan put the issue in more direct terms, saying U.S. adversaries “should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops.”

The Pentagon said by email that it would respond directly to the lawmakers.

Smartphones Have Become A Battlefield Risk

The concern over advertising identifiers comes as military commanders consider broader restrictions on smartphone use by personnel serving overseas.

In July, Reuters reported that some U.S. troops deployed in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones because commanders were worried that videos posted online by service members could help Iran locate American bases in the region.

The advertising-data problem presents a less visible version of the same challenge. A service member does not necessarily have to publish a photograph, video or message for a device to generate information about where that person may be.

Advertising technology companies and data brokers can collect information generated through applications and devices and combine it with other datasets. That creates a market in which information originally gathered for commercial purposes can potentially acquire intelligence value.

Zach Edwards, co-founder of the privacy-focused advertising technology company Decryptads, described the military’s decision to disable MAIDs as “definitely a positive thing.”

But he cautioned that removing the identifiers would not eliminate every avenue for tracking.

The restrictions, he said, would “essentially ensure their location isn’t being included in bulk data sales being done by numerous vendors.” Yet personnel could still potentially be tracked through applications or by combining technical information from devices with network and location data.

The limitation is key as disabling an advertising identifier does not make a device invisible. It removes one mechanism from the commercial tracking ecosystem while leaving other potential sources of location information intact.

The military’s response therefore reflects a broader problem confronting modern armed forces: battlefield security increasingly depends not only on classified communications and traditional intelligence systems, but also on the vast commercial networks that collect information from ordinary consumer technology.

The revelations have also raised a question for lawmakers that goes beyond the military’s own devices, whether information legally available for purchase in the commercial marketplace can become a security vulnerability when the people being tracked are American soldiers in a conflict zone.