Military officials across several branches report they have turned off advertising trackers tied to service devices after reports that commercially available location data was used to target U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East.
Letters released on Friday by a U.S. senator, together with statements provided to news organizations, outline a staggered series of actions taken by the Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command and the Army to disable advertising identifiers on equipment ranging from desktop Windows machines to Android and Apple mobile phones.
The Air Force informed the senator that it disabled advertising identifiers on both computers and mobile phones two months ago. In a separate letter, U.S. Special Operations Command said it had "recently" disabled advertising IDs on its Windows devices. The Army confirmed it has removed advertising identifiers tied to mobile devices earlier this year.
Those disclosures come as part of a broader concern in Washington - that location details collected by the advertising industry and aggregated by data brokers can be acquired and used to geolocate and potentially target military personnel. The letters reflect how the sale and resale of personal data can create operational security vulnerabilities for deployed forces.
Service branches provided differing levels of detail about timing. Similar letters from the Army and the Navy to the senator stated they had disabled advertising IDs on military devices but did not always specify when the changes were implemented. The Army additionally said that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers "since before 2021" but that Android and Apple mobile devices had advertising IDs disabled by default "since at least February 2026." Messages seeking comment from the Navy went unreturned.
The measures to curtail the generation of location data from smartphones are being implemented as military leaders consider stricter overall limits on phone use in deployed settings. In July, it was reported that some deployed personnel in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones amid concerns that mobile videos posted online were assisting adversaries in identifying U.S. bases.
On Friday, the senator and a member of the House of Representatives sent a joint letter to the Pentagon asking for an investigation into whether the department had adequately mitigated the dangers posed by the commercial location data market. The lawmakers included the services' updates on disabling advertising IDs in their correspondence to defense officials.
In a statement the senator said it was clear the military's efforts "have not been effective at neutralizing this threat." The representative said U.S. enemies "should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops."
Mobile advertising IDs - often abbreviated MAID - are unique identifiers assigned to devices that permit tracking of activity across mobile apps and can be used to infer precise physical locations. Their use in advertising and analytics has created a market in location data that can be aggregated and resold by brokers.
Zach Edwards, co-founder of privacy ad tech company Decryptads, described the move to disable MAID on military-operated devices as "definitely a positive thing." He said the restrictions "will essentially ensure their location isn’t being included in bulk data sales being done by numerous vendors," while cautioning that personnel could still be tracked through other, more complex means - such as by triangulating device technical details with network data or other location signals.
The letters and statements reveal both steps taken and gaps remaining in the services' approach to data-driven threats. Lawmakers' calls for a formal investigation point to continuing concern about whether current measures are sufficient to prevent adversaries from exploiting commercially available data to locate U.S. personnel and facilities.
As the Pentagon prepares its response to the congressional request, the services' disclosures underscore an evolving operational challenge: balancing the everyday connectivity of service members with the need to limit signals that reveal position and movement. The actions taken to disable advertising identifiers are an immediate technical mitigation; how broadly and quickly such measures are rolled out, and whether they are accompanied by additional operational controls, remains a question central to military security planning.