US military disables ad trackers on troops’ phones amid security fears

> US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by the US senator Ron Wyden and ⁠statements given to Reuters. > > The development follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East. > > The air force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two ⁠months ago. US Special Operations Command said in a separate letter that it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year