Citizen Lab reports that Webloc, an advertising-based global geolocation surveillance system developed by Cobwebs Technologies and now sold by Penlink, is being used by Hungarian domestic intelligence, El Salvador’s national police, and multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies. The tool aggregates data from mobile apps and digital advertising to track up to 500 million devices historically and infer locations and identities, findings that Penlink disputes. #Webloc #Penlink
Keypoints
- Webloc is an ad-based location intelligence platform originally developed by Cobwebs Technologies and transferred to Penlink after a 2023 merger.
- The system ingests advertising and app-derived data from hundreds of millions of devices to produce device identifiers, coordinates, and profile data.
- Customers—including ICE, U.S. military units, state police, and many city and county departments—can query location histories up to three years back and infer identities.
- Investigations and reporting indicate Webloc can enable warrantless continuous monitoring of mobile advertising IDs, geolocated IPs, and connected devices.
- Citizen Lab flagged legal and oversight concerns and mapped servers and corporate links (including ties to Quadream), while Penlink contests the report’s accuracy.
Read More: https://thehackernews.com/2026/04/citizen-lab-law-enforcement-used-webloc.html