A company that collects and sells consumer information gleaned from cellphones said it was the source of some of the advertising data used by the Department of Homeland Security and other government entities to track mobile phones without warrants, shedding new light on how device location data is harvested and sold in a secretive multibillion-dollar industry.
Mobilewalla, a closely held digital-advertising company founded in Singapore and now based in Atlanta, said in a letter last week to Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) that it had indirectly provided some of the data used by DHS, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military for warrantless tracking of devices both at home and abroad. Mr. Wyden’s office, which is conducting an investigation into location brokers, provided the letter to The Wall Street Journal.