United States of America: FTC files a lawsuit against Kochava Inc

On 29 August 2022, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against the data broker company Kochava Inc. The FTC alleges that Kochava has sold sensitive location data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to track consumers, in particular, to identify people’s visits to reproductive health clinics, places of worship, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and addiction recovery facilities. In addition, the FTC finds that the release of sensitive geolocation data could expose customers to risks such as discrimination, physical violence, emotional distress and other harms. Finally, with this lawsuit, the FTC seeks to stop the company's sale of geolocation data and to demand the deletion of the already collected sensitive geolocation data.