The U.S. Department of Defense has taken steps to disable advertising tracking on government-issued devices used by military personnel across the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command. According to a letter shared with Senator Ron Wyden, this measure applies to iPhones, Android devices, and Windows computers managed within the federal military enterprise network. The implementation of these protections began earlier this year, with the Air Force reporting its changes in July.

The primary objective of disabling advertising tracking is to safeguard troops from potential threats that exploit location data derived from apps on their devices. The letter explains that location data collected from phone apps is often shared with third-party companies and data brokers, who then sell this information on the commercial market. By disabling the advertising ID, the location data of military personnel becomes indistinguishable from that of other users with disabled advertising IDs, making it significantly more challenging for adversaries, including hostile governments, to target them on the battlefield or at military bases. Source

This is a summary. Read the original at techcrunch.com.