Citizen Lab: Webloc tracked 500M devices for global law enforcement

Citizen Lab found that law enforcement agencies in multiple countries used Webloc, a commercial ad-data surveillance platform developed by Cobwebs Technologies and sold by Penlink, to track devices (potentially up to 500 million) using mobile advertising IDs, GPS/Wi‑Fi, app telemetry and behavioral segments; the report details the platform’s capabilities (historical and near‑real‑time geolocation, geofencing, relationship mapping), supporting infrastructure across many countries, vendor links to other surveillance firms, and raises significant legal, privacy, and oversight concerns.